The Changing Role of IAEA

This research paper deals with the changing role of the International Atomic Energy Agency of the United Nations (IAEA) with particular reference to the problem of the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Its thesis is that the IAEA plays an important role in preventing the spread of such weapons, but that it labors under numerous handicaps, including inadequate funding, uncertain political direction and, in the case of the Iraqi inspections, internal mismanagement.

Headquartered in Vienna, IAEA was founded in 1957 as an outgrowth of Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace Plan of 1953. Under its enabling statute, it was authorized to:

"establish and administer safeguards designed to ensure that special fissionable . . . materials, services, equipment and facilities made available by the Agency are not used . . . to further any military purpose" (Elliott, 1989, p. 254).

Bundy (1988) and others have criticized this charter for being too narrow (p. 293), but over time the IAEA has become the international agency responsible for establishing safeguards to "deter the diversion of nuclear materials from peaceful uses to military uses through the risk of timely detection" (Spector, 1987, p. 336). Its authority to conduct these activities is derived from the Treaty on the NonProliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which went into force in 1970 and the companion 1967 Treaty of Tlateloco which covers Latin America. Under the NPT, IAEA

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