Nuclear Non-Proliferation, Trade and Security
Nuclear Trade and Security
Nuclear Exports and Safeguards
Australia's Network of Nuclear Safeguards Agreements
All of Australia's uranium is exported for exclusively peaceful purposes, and only to countries and parties with which Australia has a bilateral safeguards Agreement. These Agreements ensure that Australia's nuclear exports remain in exclusively peaceful use, and may only be retransferred to a party with a bilateral safeguards Agreement with Australia.
Australia’s network of bilateral safeguards Agreements complements and builds upon the IAEA’s safeguards regime. They establish treaty-level conditions on the use of all nuclear material exported from Australia.
IAEA safeguards are generally not concerned with origin attribution. Australia’s bilateral safeguards Agreements serve as a mechanism to apply specific conditions on Australian Obligated Nuclear Material (AONM) which are additional to IAEA safeguards, for instance, with regard to retransfers, high enrichment and reprocessing. Each of Australia’s bilateral safeguards Agreements is supplemented by its own Administrative Arrangement, a confidential document of less than treaty status between Australia and the other country which establishes procedures to ensure the smooth implementation of the provisions of the bilateral Agreement.
Australia's safeguards policy also involves the careful selection of countries which are eligible to receive Australian uranium exports. In the case of non-nuclear-weapon states, they must be subject to IAEA fullscope safeguards (i.e. IAEA safeguards apply to all existing and future nuclear activities). In the case of nuclear-weapon states, there must be a treaty level assurance that AONM will only be used for peaceful purposes, and that AONM will be covered by IAEA safeguards.
The Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office (ASNO), besides acting as Australia’s national safeguards authority - responsible for Australia's NPT safeguards Agreement with the IAEA - also operates Australia’s system of bilateral safeguards Agreements, and accounts for nuclear material through administering the Nuclear Non-Proliferation (Safeguards) Act 1987
| Country | Date of Entry into Force |
|---|---|
| Republic of Korea (ROK) | 2 May 1979 |
| United Kingdom | 24 July 1979 |
| Finland | 9 February 1980 |
| Canada | 9 March 1981 |
| Sweden | 22 May 1981 |
| France | 12 September 1981 |
| Euratom 1 | 15 January 1982 |
| Philippines | 11 May 1982 |
| Japan | 17 August 1982 |
| Switzerland | 27 July 1988 |
| Egypt | 2 June 1989 |
| Mexico | 17 July 1992 |
| New Zealand | 1 May 2000 |
| United States (covering cooperation on Silex Technology) | 24 May 2000 |
| Czech Republic | 17 May 2002 |
| USA covering supply to Taiwan, China | 17 May 2002 |
| Hungary | 15 June 2002 |
| Argentina | 12 January 2005 |
| People’s Republic of China2 | 3 February 2007 |
| Russian Federation | 11 November 2010 |
| United States of America | 22 December 2010 |
Notes:
- Euratom is the atomic energy agency of the European Union. The Euratom agreement covers all 27 member states. The current agreement is due to expire on 15 January 2012. A new agreement was signed on 5 September 2011 and is awaiting entry into force.
- 2. Australia has two agreements with China, one covering nuclear material transfers and one covering nuclear cooperation.
The above list does not include Australia’s NPT safeguards Agreement with the IAEA, concluded on 10 July 1974. In addition to the above Agreements, Australia also has an Exchange of Notes constituting an Agreement with Singapore Concerning Cooperation on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Materials, which entered into force on 15 December 1989.