Nuclear Security Summits

This book describes the four Nuclear Security Summits held over 2010-2016 at the initiative of U.S. President Barack Obama. The author draws upon his unique vantage point as a participant in the Summits, exclusive interviews with practitioners, and access to primary documents, to write an engaging history of the NSS and of nuclear security in general. The story of the NSS is also in part the story of multilateral nuclear forums, which have sprung up regularly since the dawn of the nuclear age to address perceived nuclear dangers. The success of these Summits in addressing the threat of nuclear terrorism holds important lessons for the design and work of nuclear forums today and into the future. The author presents a new approach to assessing ‘international learning’ that has important implications for the design of multilateral forums and updates the Cold War areas of nuclear knowledge being ‘learnt’ in the light of the NSS experience and other recent developments. This work will be of interest to scholars and practitioners in security studies, nuclear history, and International Relations.

This is a print on demand edition of a hard to find publication. Pres. Barack Obama said that he would host a global nuclear security summit in April 2010 to ¿develop steps that can be taken to secure vulnerable materials, combat nuclear smuggling and deter, detect, and disrupt attempts at nuclear terrorism.¿ In order to provide analysis, educ., and policy recommend. that highlight the urgency of the nuclear security agenda, a summit of experts was brought together to engage a primarily non-governmental, international expert audience. This summit created a forum for international experts to interact and collaborate on the nuclear security agenda by providing them with an opportunity to advance policy proposals that go beyond those endorsed at the governmental summit. This report summarizes the conference.

The U.S. government has made safeguarding of weapons-grade plutonium and highly enriched uranium an international policy priority, and convened The 2010 Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, D.C., on April 12 and 13, 2010. Forty six governments sent delegations to the summit and twenty nine of them made national commitments to support nuclear security. During the Summit, India announced its commitment to establish a Global Centre for Nuclear Energy Partnership. The Centre is to be open to international participation through academic0 exchanges, training, and research and development efforts. India-United States Cooperation on Global Security is the summary of a workshop held by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) together with its partner of more than 15 years, the National Institute for Advanced Studies (NIAS) in Bangalore, India. The workshop identified and examined potential areas for substantive scientific and technical cooperation between the two countries on issues related to nuclear material security. Technical experts from India and the United States focused on topics of nuclear material security and promising opportunities for India and the United States to learn from each other and cooperate. This report discusses nuclear materials management issues such as nuclear materials accounting, cyber security, physical security, and nuclear forensics.

Contents: (1) Intro.; (2) The Summit: Expected Summit Outcomes; Foreign Reactions to the Summit; The Non-Proliferation Treaty and Nuclear Security; (3) What is ¿Nuclear Security (NS)¿?; (4) Challenges to Achieving the Four-Year Goal; (5) Domestic NS Measures; (6) Multilateral Efforts to Improve NS: The IAEA and NS; Informal Initiatives and Non-Proliferation Assistance; (7) Role of Non-Governmental Org. and Industry; (8) Considerations and Options for Congress: Legislation in the 111th Congress: NS and the FY 2011 Congressional Budget Request; Appendix A: Multilateral NS-Related Instruments and Initiatives; Appendix B: U.S. NS Assistance to Foreign Countries.

Making a timely contribution to the legal literature, this important book discusses an under-analysed issue of great importance to international peace and security. It provides a comprehensive overview and analysis of the prevention of nuclear terrorism specifically through an international (arms control) law lens.