Estimation of trade flows related to export-controlled dual-use items. Data sources, methodology and tools

Dual-use items are goods and technologies that have both civil and military uses. In the European Union their export is controlled and governed by an EC regulation since the year 2000. Its implementation, in terms of legislation, export authorisations and customs controls, remains the responsibility of each of the 27 Member States. For reasons linked to the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, competition in trade and free market rules, it is ‘desirable to achieve a uniform and consistent application of controls throughout the EU in order to promote EU and international security and to provide a level playing field for EU exporters’ – as stated in the regulation. How far is the goal? Hard to say since no official data about the trade of dual-use items are shared among Member States, nor with the European Commission, Directorate General Trade, in charge of the dual-use regulation. This report presents sources of generic, statistical trade data and a methodology to create an approximate picture of extra-EU trade flows of dual-use items. The data stem from goods’ declarations made by exporters to customs authorities as part of the normal export process for any commodity. The data are collected at national level, aggregated by categories of goods, and made public in web data services on trade. The data are referred to a commodity classification system, the Combined Nomenclature (CN), in use for customs controls in the EU. However the CN is only indirectly related to dual-use items. Correspondence tables exist that map dual-use items to CN descriptors, but they introduce approximations in the description of the items traded. For this reason the CN trade data provide, in the general case, upper bounds to the real trade volume of dual-use items. Notwithstanding this limitation, the CN trade data may prove useful for a number of issues and assessments needed for export controls. One example is presented in this report. It concerns the estimation of extra-EU trade flows for dual-use chemicals under consideration for inclusion in a Union General Export Authorisation (EU GEA). EU GEAs define a framework valid in all EU Members States whereby the export of selected categories of dual-use items to specific destination countries with a low-risk of diversion is automatically authorised. An analysis of the volume of exports based on CN trade data allows estimating the impact expected for EU exporters by including given dual-use chemicals in an EU GEA. To facilitate the estimation of extra-EU trade flows, it is proposed to develop a dedicated Information Technology tool merging lists of export-controlled items with correspondence tables of CN items’ descriptors and export data. Such a tool can become a design and evaluation instrument to assess the economic impact of alternative policy options to regulate the European dual-use trade.JRC.E.8-Nuclear securit

Understanding nuclear trade: data sources and tools

Over the last few years, a growing concern developed around the trade of equipment designed for nuclear use and nuclear-related dual-use items that may be diverted to non-peaceful uses. Trade data sources and tools presented hereafter can enhance understanding of nuclear related trade from different perspectives. One perspective is nuclear safeguards. Since 2007, the Joint Research Centre has been supporting the IAEA in finding and evaluating collections of open source data on trade. We identified, and documented in a catalogue of trade data, sources stemming from declarations made by importers and exporters to customs authorities. Customs data are collected nationally, processed and published in transactional or aggregated formats by decision of individual States. Bringing these data together results in a large collection that creates a global geographical view on trade, covers all commodities, and reports trade in quantitative form over several years. The data are retrieved by Harmonised System (HS) codes, the taxonomy of goods designed and maintained by the World Customs Organization. HS codes introduce approximations in the description of the trade making the data of no immediate use to safeguards. Their use requires first mapping items of interest to safeguards verifications to HS codes. To this goal, correspondence tables have been developed by trade analysts and experts of the Harmonised System. To make these tables easy-to-use, we have designed and developed a software tool named The Big Table (TBT) which supports: (a) searching a collection of reference documents relevant to nuclear trade (legal documents and handbooks); (b) selecting items of interest to specific safeguards verifications; (c) mapping items to HS codes by means of correspondence tables. These steps are preliminary to data retrieval from sources on trade described above. These data sources and TBT are currently in use at IAEA¿s Trade and Technology Analysis Unit, for safeguards purposes. Other perspective uses of trade data pertain to the area of export controls. Potential uses include the estimation of trade flows of controlled items to inform the design of export control policies, as well as verifications on compliance with export controls regulations. In this paper we present firstly a collection of data sources on global trade. The paper will then tackle in some detail the first perspective, i.e. the use of trade data to support safeguards with a focus on the TBT software tool for nuclear trade analysis. Other perspectives on the use of trade data will then be briefly outlined.JRC.E.9-Nuclear security (Ispra

Catalogue of WEB Data Services on Global Trade

This document is a catalogue of WEB services providing data on global trade. It updates to March 2010 the first edition published in 2007. Each service is described in the catalogue according to a form specifying data fields, geographical coverage, temporal span, search criteria and reporting facilities on data records. The information has been derived from WEB sites, email contacts with service providers, trial runs, and interviews with users. Services listed herein offer data on imports and exports on all types of commodities over the last decade. The use of the data is generic: they can support studies related to trade in diverse domains and applications. Trade data described in this catalogue have a regulatory origin because they stem from declarations made by importers and exporters to customs authorities. The data are collected at national level, processed, and released for public access under formats respecting national provisions on data confidentiality. Trade data are released in transactional or statistical format and may have a national or multi-national scope. Services on trade transactions are run by companies and are accessible after the payment of subscription fees. Services on statistical data (obtained by aggregating transactions) often have a multi-national scope and are provided for free access by international and governmental organizations, and statistical offices, or as pay services by companies. This catalogue has been compiled as part of the activities on nuclear trade information analysis within the action IANUS (Information Analysis for Nuclear Security, action nr. 53104 of JRC IPSC FP7).JRC.DG.G.8-Nuclear securit

Innovation in Safeguards R&D and EU Contributions to Strengthening the Global Safeguards System

To address the safeguards challenges in a changing and transnational world, there is a need to combine the "classical" safeguards technologies, with new approaches and tools, which in some cases try to "think outside the box". Research and Development performed by the European Commission Joint Research Centre in this area, include advanced monitoring techniques, open source information and satellite imagery analysis, use of trade data and risk based assessment of sensitive technologies. A number of developments are done in close collaboration with its colleagues in other Directorate General of the European Commission (ENER, RELEX, DEVCO, TRADE etc), with the European Safeguards Research and Development Association (ESARDA), with IAEA, US-DOE, with facility operators and other international collaborations. This paper will illustrate a few of the latest developments with the example of "monitoring uranium enrichment facilities and related activities". A second part of the paper, describes the legal framework and instruments, at the disposal of the European Union, which support the developments to address the challenges and which seek to implement programmes to address global threats.JRC.E.9-Nuclear security (Ispra

The Big Table - A Software Tool for Nuclear Trade Analysis

This report overviews functionalities provided by 'The Big Table' (TBT), a software tool designed to support nuclear trade analysis for IAEA safeguards. TBT allows analysts to perform steps preparatory to the retrieval and analysis of data records pertinent to case studies on nuclear trade. Trade data records stem from open source web data services on global trade and are retrieved by Harmonized System codes, i.e. commodity descriptors used by traders to declare imports and exports to customs authorities. The report is structured in two main Parts. The first Part presents elements of nuclear trade analysis. The report concludes by comparing TBT to related information tools developed in the context of export controls. Future developments on TBT are outlined pointing to new application areas.JRC.DG.E.9-Nuclear security (Ispra

Open Source Information Analysis in Support to Non-Proliferation

Open source information, here defined as "publicly available information that anyone can lawfully obtain by request, purchase, or observation" is playing an increasing role in treaty monitoring, compliance verification and control. The increasing availability of data from a growing number of sources on a vast range of topics has the potential to provide cues about complex programmes subject to international treaties such as the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). This report suggests a system’s thinking view of open source analysis in support to nonproliferation analysis, identifying the possible dimensions (hard/soft/context) involved and discussing different types of scenarios an open source analyst might face. Modelling a nuclear engineering programme by explicitly acknowledging the peculiarities of its hard and soft layers allows the analyst to consider which are the types of insights that each layer can provide and which is the the best tool/technique to investigate them. Once a particular analysis is set, the analyst might face different types of analysis scenarios, according to the type of the problem to be tackled and the type of data at his disposal. An open source analyst in support of non-proliferation will also have to handle many different forms of uncertainties, whose proper understanding is critical for the analyst to perform dependable assessments and for the decision maker to take properly informed decisions. A system’s thinking approach to open source analysis has the potential to integrate synergically with the other tools available in the international treaty monitoring toolkit, helping in increasing the international community’s confidence in its ability to detect an undeclared proliferation programme.JRC.G.II.7-Nuclear securit

The potential of open source information in supporting Acquisition Pathway Analysis to design IAEA State Level Approaches

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards designed to deter nuclear proliferation are constantly evolving to respond to new challenges. Within its State Level Concept, the IAEA envisions an objective-based and information-driven approach for designing and implementing State Level Approaches (SLAs), using all available measures to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of safeguards. The main Objectives of a SLA are a) to detect undeclared nuclear material or activities in the State, b) to detect undeclared production or processing of nuclear materials in declared facilities or locations outside facilities (LOFs), c) to detect diversion of declared nuclear material in declared facilities or LOFs. Under the SLA, States will be differentiated based upon objective State-Specific Factors that influence the design, planning, conduct and evaluation of safeguards activities. Proposed categories of factors include both technical and legal aspects, spanning from the deployed fuel cycle and the related state's technical capability to the type of safeguards agreements in force and the IAEA experience in implementing safeguards in that state. To design a SLA, the IAEA foresees the use of Acquisition Path Analysis (APA) to identify the plausible routes for acquiring weapons-usable material and to assess their safeguards significance. In order to achieve this goal, APA will have to identify possible acquisition paths, characterize them and eventually prioritise them. This paper will provide an overview of how the use of open source information (here loosely defined as any type of non-classified or proprietary information and including, but not limited to, media sources, government and non-governmental reports and analyses, commercial data, satellite imagery, scientific/technical literature, trade data) can support this activity in the various aspects of a typical APA approach.JRC.E.8-Nuclear securit

Integrating IAEA’s Physical Model with JRC’s The Big Table document search tool

The Physical Model (PM) is an internal multi-Volume document for the IAEA’s Department of Safeguards describing the nuclear fuel cycle. This report describes work carried out by the JRC with the IAEA to prototype the integration of the PM with The Big Table (TBT), a document search tool developed by the JRC and in use at the IAEA. The core of TBT is an integrated collection of reference documents including regulatory documents, technical handbooks and trade nomenclatures. The documents are stored in a database. They are searchable by text in a structured way (i.e. on database fields) and also by correspondence tables that relate items by their meaning. To integrate the Physical Model into TBT, the IAEA/SG/SGIM has first turned the PM into a tabular format. JRC has then proposed and implemented a way of coding the PM in TBT tables to better reflect the PM structure. Eleven PM Volumes have been integrated in a TBT-PM database for use by the IAEA. The PM Volumes are linked by correspondence tables to other documents in the TBT collection. By coding the Physical Model into a TBT database format, the original intended uses of the PM are still supported. TBT can ease the consultation of the PM for evaluating States’ nuclear activities by IAEA’s analysts. TBT can be an aid for IAEA’s inspectors preparing for routine and ad hoc inspections, design information verification visits and complementary access operations. Further the PM integrated into TBT can be used as a tool for training inspectors on steps of the nuclear fuel cycle. Finally implementing the Physical Model multi-level structure into a database-coded format opens the possibility of linking the PM to other taxonomies and collections of open sources relevant for safeguards analyses.JRC.E.8-Nuclear securit

Predictive maintenance for the heated hold-up tank

We present a numerical method to compute an optimal maintenance date for the test case of the heated hold-up tank. The system consists of a tank containing a fluid whose level is controlled by three components: two inlet pumps and one outlet valve. A thermal power source heats up the fluid. The failure rates of the components depends on the temperature, the position of the three components monitors the liquid level in the tank and the liquid level determines the temperature. Therefore, this system can be modeled by a hybrid process where the discrete (components) and continuous (level, temperature) parts interact in a closed loop. We model the system by a piecewise deterministic Markov process, propose and implement a numerical method to compute the optimal maintenance date to repair the components before the total failure of the system.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1101.174

Cosmological Reionization Around the First Stars: Monte Carlo Radiative Transfer

We study the evolution of ionization fronts around the first proto-galaxies by using high resolution numerical cosmological (Lambda+CDM model) simulations and Monte Carlo radiative transfer methods. We present the numerical scheme in detail and show the results of test runs from which we conclude that the scheme is both fast and accurate. As an example of interesting cosmological application, we study the reionization produced by a stellar source of total mass M=2 10^8 M_\odot turning on at z=12, located at a node of the cosmic web. The study includes a Spectral Energy Distribution of a zero-metallicity stellar population, and two Initial Mass Functions (Salpeter/Larson). The expansion of the I-front is followed as it breaks out from the galaxy and it is channeled by the filaments into the voids, assuming, in a 2D representation, a characteristic butterfly shape. The ionization evolution is very well tracked by our scheme, as realized by the correct treatment of the channeling and shadowing effects due to overdensities. We confirm previous claims that both the shape of the IMF and the ionizing power metallicity dependence are important to correctly determine the reionization of the universe.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures. Revised version, accepted for publication by MNRA