Can State-level Safeguards be applied in Nuclear Weapon States?

Abstract

Acquisition Path Analysis (APA) is a key element of IAEA’s State-level concept. Currently, this process is mainly based on expert judgment. However, the requirements from the IAEA state that the process must be objective, reproducible, transparent, standardized, documented and as a result non-discriminatory. A formal approach fulfilling these requirements has been set up by the authors in the past (see [1]). In this paper, the refined methodology is presented. Improvements have been made in the interface definition between the three stages, the general network model has been updated, and the automatic vi-sualization of acquisition paths has been accomplished. Furthermore, a prototype implementation will be shown. Based on this methodology, a test case example is presented which models a hypothetic nuclear weapon State not having signed the NPT. For this case, it will be shown how APA can be implemented using the proposed methodology. [1] C. Listner, M.J. Canty , A. Rezniczek, G. Stein, I. Niemeyer A Concept for Handling Acquisition Path Analysis in the Framework of IAEA’s State-level Approach Proceedings of the INMM Annual Meeting, 201