{"id":16334,"date":"2014-10-14T14:30:44","date_gmt":"2014-10-14T03:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=16334"},"modified":"2014-10-15T07:07:35","modified_gmt":"2014-10-14T20:07:35","slug":"australia-india-nuclear-treaty-a-non-proliferation-disaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/australia-india-nuclear-treaty-a-non-proliferation-disaster\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia\u2013India nuclear treaty: a non-proliferation disaster"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Kudankulam<\/a>The civil nuclear cooperation agreement<\/a> signed by Australia and India seriously undermines Australia\u2019s credibility as a responsible nuclear supplier, along with the international nuclear non-proliferation regime as a whole. The Joint Standing Committee on Treaties (JSCOT) must demand that Australia re-negotiate the terms of the treaty with India in order to avoid a foreign policy failure that cripples Australia\u2019s non-proliferation record.<\/p>\n

To be clear, exporting Australian uranium to India is a good idea<\/a>. After all, India has a huge and growing population, and needs access to clean energy to alleviate poverty without contributing to the rise in global greenhouse gas emissions.<\/p>\n

To that end, demanding that India join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as a pre-requisite to receiving Australian uranium was always a non-starter. As an empirical fact, India can\u2019t join the NPT as a nuclear-weapon state. To join and be in compliance with the NPT, India would first need to unilaterally dismantle its nuclear arsenal. Contending with two nuclear powers on its borders (China and Pakistan), both with expanding nuclear arsenals, India won\u2019t be doing that anytime soon.<\/p>\n

In recognition of those difficulties, the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) granted India an exemption from the NPT requirement in 2008. That enabled India to access nuclear material for peaceful purposes under the strict understanding that India would adhere to all the obligations expected of a nuclear-weapon state party to the NPT. The barriers to India joining the NPT were acknowledged, while the integrity of the NPT\u2014although weakened\u2014was maintained.<\/p>\n

Nuclear suppliers do have a responsibility, however, for ensuring their nuclear material isn\u2019t used to build nuclear weapons, and must maintain strict mechanisms for that purpose. If countries can access nuclear supply without the attendant responsibilities, then support for longstanding non-proliferation regimes will be undermined, countries will see less value in treaties such as the NPT, and a key pillar of the nuclear arms control regime as a whole will be weakened.<\/p>\n

The text of the proposed Australian export deal fails that basic test. In addition to a range of other flaws, for the first time in 40 years Australia won\u2019t be able to guarantee how the nuclear material it supplies is being used. Specifically, the agreement allows India to reprocess uranium supplied by Australia to create plutonium, potentially at weapons grade, with no direct accounting by India to Australia for that material, and unusually, no provision for the return of the material in the event of it being misused. As former Director-General of ASNO, John Carlson, explains<\/a>, Australia currently allows reprocessing only by two export partners, the EU and Japan, each with direct reporting requirements and specific permission being given by Australia as to how the reprocessed material is to be used.<\/p>\n

Accordingly, the deal with India isn\u2019t comparable to Australia\u2019s other nuclear export agreements. Australia is privileging India by excluding key provisions normally included to ensure a recipient of nuclear material is accountable to the supplier. Australia\u2019s other nuclear export partners might demand similar concessions, undermining the integrity of the non-proliferation regime as a whole.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the concessions made by Australia are unnecessary. It\u2019s certainly true that Australia\u2019s earlier refusal to export uranium to India (unless it joined the NPT) caused tensions and mistrust in the bilateral relationship. But those were resolved in 2011 when the then Labor government changed its policy to enable export to India under conditions similar to Australia\u2019s agreements with other partners. India doesn\u2019t require Australian uranium for power production in the medium term. What matters for the Australia\u2013India relationship is Australia\u2019s willingness<\/em> to export uranium to India under appropriate conditions, not whether an actual agreement is currently in place at any cost.<\/p>\n

Not only does this agreement undermine long established non-proliferation regimes and Australia\u2019s credibility as a nuclear supplier, it represents a missed opportunity to strengthen it<\/a>. Given that what matters most to India is being treated on a par with China and the United States, India should be expected to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) after the US Senate does, just as China has already agreed to do. In this way a nuclear agreement with India would\u2019ve served as a useful catalyst for bringing much of the world\u2019s population under the CTBT with a single act of the US legislature. Without such an undertaking, China may well renege on its previous pledge, reasonably arguing that it can\u2019t join the CTBT while a nuclear-armed India remains outside the treaty on its border.<\/p>\n

The agreement marks a significant departure from Australia\u2019s longstanding practice. By excluding the normal provisions that ensure a nuclear recipient is directly accountable to the supplier, Australia is abrogating the principle that nuclear suppliers are accountable for how their exported nuclear material is used. It\u2019s in the security interests of all nations, including India, that the integrity of the non-proliferation regime be preserved in order to restrict the spread of nuclear weapons. For the sake of our collective long-term term security, as well as our national integrity, the agreement must either be amended to reflect Australia\u2019s long-standing safeguard requirements, or opposed.<\/p>\n

Crispin Rovere is a former PhD student at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, ANU and co-author of\u00a0<\/em>Non-strategic nuclear weapons: the next step in multilateral arms control. Image courtesy of Flickr user Indiawaterportal.org<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The civil nuclear cooperation agreement signed by Australia and India seriously undermines Australia\u2019s credibility as a responsible nuclear supplier, along with the international nuclear non-proliferation regime as a whole. The Joint Standing Committee on Treaties …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":16343,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[479],"tags":[485,792,935,172,356],"class_list":["post-16334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nonproliferation","tag-nuclear-disarmament","tag-nuclear-energy","tag-nuclear-policy","tag-nuclear-security","tag-nuclear-weapons"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAustralia\u2013India nuclear treaty: a non-proliferation disaster | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/australia-india-nuclear-treaty-a-non-proliferation-disaster\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Australia\u2013India nuclear treaty: a non-proliferation disaster | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The civil nuclear cooperation agreement signed by Australia and India seriously undermines Australia\u2019s credibility as a responsible nuclear supplier, along with the international nuclear non-proliferation regime as a whole. 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