Saving the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Regime from Collapse
KANEKO Kumao / Professor, Tokai University
April 26, 2004
As the world's only nation ravaged by the atomic bombs, Japan has been devoted to its non-nuclear stance throughout the post-war era, and the abolition of nuclear weapons has remained an ardent wish of the majority of Japanese people. On the other hand, as a nation lacking in domestic energy resources that must depend on imports for almost 100% of its oil and natural gas needs, Japan decided to introduce nuclear power a decade after World War II, and today after fifty years, has become a major nuclear state in the world that generates one-third of its electricity through nuclear power.
Japan is unique among nations in that from the initial stages of its nuclear power program, all officials and experts involved had nothing but peaceful use in mind, and none of them entertained malevolent intentions of diverting the technology to develop nuclear weapons. To date, Japan has not only adhered to its own Atomic Energy Basic Law enacted in 1955 and the Three Non-Nuclear Principles to strictly discipline itself, but as a state party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that came into effect in 1970, has also demonstrated good faith in accepting stringent nuclear inspections (safeguards) by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), thereby securing its position as an exemplary model of peaceful use of nuclear energy.
Meanwhile, turning our eyes to the world at large, we find that since around the end of the Cold War there has been a successive emergence of countries which, despite their being states party the NPT, have nevertheless conspired to covertly develop nuclear weapons under the pretext of peaceful purposes. These so-called "rogue nations" including Iraq, Iran and North Korea now pose a serious issue in international politics. And the gravity of the current state of nuclear proliferation has been made ever clearer by the gradual revelation since the end of last year of the existence of a "nuclear black market" centered on Pakistan's Dr. A. Q. Kahn.
If we leave this situation unattended, the NPT regime - in reality already without substance - will inevitably collapse, eventually fulfilling a prediction made by Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, who headed the Manhattan Project, and his colleagues 60 years ago, that once out of the Pandora's Box, the "nuclear genie" will spread like cancer cells and in the end destroy the earth. The pessimistic view is that it is already too late to do anything about it.
Even so, we cannot simply stand by and allow the NPT system to go to ruin. In the absence of a positive international law that bans nuclear weapons per se, the NPT, which prohibits nuclear weapons development by non-nuclear states, must be maintained by all means as the only existing legal code. What concrete actions should we take, then?
U.S. President George Bush, whose worst fear lies in the possibility that nuclear weapons may be used in future terrorist attacks against the U.S., proposed a series of new intitatives in a speech given at the National Defense University on February 11. Specifically, while the President recognizes the importance of "the Additional Protocol" aimed at reinforcing international nuclear inspections (safeguards) by the IAEA, considering the reality of the current situation where only a few countries have ratified the protocol, he proposed calling on the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) - 40 countries with advanced nuclear technology - outside the framework of the IAEA to ban all future exports of related equipment, facilities and technologies to "any state that does not already possess full-scale, functioning enrichment and reprocessing plants."
It is commonly known that there are two types of nuclear bombs, the uranium-model (Hiroshima type) and the plutonium model (Nagasaki type), and that they require either a facility to enrich Uranium 235 to above 90% or a facility to reprocess spent nuclear fuel to extract Plutonium with a high level of purity. The Bush proposal will be applied to all but five major nations - the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France and China - that already possess full-scale enrichment and reprocessing facilities, plus Japan, which had established relevant technology more than 20 years ago and has a substantial operational track record. While India, Pakistan, Israel and others also possess related technology, they will apparently continue to be discriminated because of their non-adherence to the NPT.
The Bush proposal obviously faces strong criticism for violating Article IV of the NPT, which guarantees non-nuclear states the "inalienable right" to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. For this reason, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, an Egyptian, presented his own proposal in autumn last year - earlier than the Bush proposal - and has been advocating the creation of a system that would enable non-nuclear states to reprocess, enrich nuclear fuels under multi-national control, rather than on its own. The Bush and ElBaradei proposals each have their merits and demerits, and it is difficult to speculate how their differences will be adjusted, but as long as their common goal remains to prevent nuclear proliferation, we must seek to construct an effective system that can gain approval from most nations.
Japan has an important role to play in such an endeavor. Japan possesses full-scale reprocessing plants in Tokai-mura, Ibaraki Prefecture and Rokkasho-mura, Aomori Prefecture -- the Rokkasho-mura Plant is scheduled to begin operation in 2006 -- as well as an enrichment plant, and is recognized as a country with "vested rights" under the Bush initiative. It would be both inappropriate and inadmissible, therefore, for Japan to sit back and adopt a self-centered stance of a bystander. Japan, a nation that has resolutely upheld its non-nuclear commitment as the world's only atomic bomb victim and the only nation apart from the five nuclear weapon-states whose nuclear fuel cycle activities such as enrichment and reprocessing enjoy official endorsement, must utilize its knowledge and experience to the maximum extent and strive towards the creation of an international system that guarantees the safe and effective use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. I believe this is the best path for saving the world's nuclear non-proliferation regime from collapse.
The writer is a professor at Tokai University. He is also President of the Japan Council on Nuclear Energy, Environment and Security and a former diplomat.
Japan is unique among nations in that from the initial stages of its nuclear power program, all officials and experts involved had nothing but peaceful use in mind, and none of them entertained malevolent intentions of diverting the technology to develop nuclear weapons. To date, Japan has not only adhered to its own Atomic Energy Basic Law enacted in 1955 and the Three Non-Nuclear Principles to strictly discipline itself, but as a state party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that came into effect in 1970, has also demonstrated good faith in accepting stringent nuclear inspections (safeguards) by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), thereby securing its position as an exemplary model of peaceful use of nuclear energy.
Meanwhile, turning our eyes to the world at large, we find that since around the end of the Cold War there has been a successive emergence of countries which, despite their being states party the NPT, have nevertheless conspired to covertly develop nuclear weapons under the pretext of peaceful purposes. These so-called "rogue nations" including Iraq, Iran and North Korea now pose a serious issue in international politics. And the gravity of the current state of nuclear proliferation has been made ever clearer by the gradual revelation since the end of last year of the existence of a "nuclear black market" centered on Pakistan's Dr. A. Q. Kahn.
If we leave this situation unattended, the NPT regime - in reality already without substance - will inevitably collapse, eventually fulfilling a prediction made by Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, who headed the Manhattan Project, and his colleagues 60 years ago, that once out of the Pandora's Box, the "nuclear genie" will spread like cancer cells and in the end destroy the earth. The pessimistic view is that it is already too late to do anything about it.
Even so, we cannot simply stand by and allow the NPT system to go to ruin. In the absence of a positive international law that bans nuclear weapons per se, the NPT, which prohibits nuclear weapons development by non-nuclear states, must be maintained by all means as the only existing legal code. What concrete actions should we take, then?
U.S. President George Bush, whose worst fear lies in the possibility that nuclear weapons may be used in future terrorist attacks against the U.S., proposed a series of new intitatives in a speech given at the National Defense University on February 11. Specifically, while the President recognizes the importance of "the Additional Protocol" aimed at reinforcing international nuclear inspections (safeguards) by the IAEA, considering the reality of the current situation where only a few countries have ratified the protocol, he proposed calling on the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) - 40 countries with advanced nuclear technology - outside the framework of the IAEA to ban all future exports of related equipment, facilities and technologies to "any state that does not already possess full-scale, functioning enrichment and reprocessing plants."
It is commonly known that there are two types of nuclear bombs, the uranium-model (Hiroshima type) and the plutonium model (Nagasaki type), and that they require either a facility to enrich Uranium 235 to above 90% or a facility to reprocess spent nuclear fuel to extract Plutonium with a high level of purity. The Bush proposal will be applied to all but five major nations - the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France and China - that already possess full-scale enrichment and reprocessing facilities, plus Japan, which had established relevant technology more than 20 years ago and has a substantial operational track record. While India, Pakistan, Israel and others also possess related technology, they will apparently continue to be discriminated because of their non-adherence to the NPT.
The Bush proposal obviously faces strong criticism for violating Article IV of the NPT, which guarantees non-nuclear states the "inalienable right" to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. For this reason, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, an Egyptian, presented his own proposal in autumn last year - earlier than the Bush proposal - and has been advocating the creation of a system that would enable non-nuclear states to reprocess, enrich nuclear fuels under multi-national control, rather than on its own. The Bush and ElBaradei proposals each have their merits and demerits, and it is difficult to speculate how their differences will be adjusted, but as long as their common goal remains to prevent nuclear proliferation, we must seek to construct an effective system that can gain approval from most nations.
Japan has an important role to play in such an endeavor. Japan possesses full-scale reprocessing plants in Tokai-mura, Ibaraki Prefecture and Rokkasho-mura, Aomori Prefecture -- the Rokkasho-mura Plant is scheduled to begin operation in 2006 -- as well as an enrichment plant, and is recognized as a country with "vested rights" under the Bush initiative. It would be both inappropriate and inadmissible, therefore, for Japan to sit back and adopt a self-centered stance of a bystander. Japan, a nation that has resolutely upheld its non-nuclear commitment as the world's only atomic bomb victim and the only nation apart from the five nuclear weapon-states whose nuclear fuel cycle activities such as enrichment and reprocessing enjoy official endorsement, must utilize its knowledge and experience to the maximum extent and strive towards the creation of an international system that guarantees the safe and effective use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. I believe this is the best path for saving the world's nuclear non-proliferation regime from collapse.
The writer is a professor at Tokai University. He is also President of the Japan Council on Nuclear Energy, Environment and Security and a former diplomat.
The English-Speaking Union of Japan
核不拡散体制の崩壊を防げ
金子 熊夫 / 東海大学教授
2004年 4月 26日
唯一の被爆国日本は、戦後一貫して非核に徹し、核廃絶は大多数の国民の悲願である。他方、国内にエネルギー資源を欠き、石油や天然ガスのほぼ100％を海外からの輸入に頼る日本は、戦後10年目にして原子力発電の導入に踏み切り、50年後の今日、総発電量の３分の１を原子力で賄う世界有数の原子力大国となっている。
日本が他の国とくらべて独特なのは、日本の原子力関係者の頭には最初から平和利用しかなく、これを転用して核兵器を作ろうなどという邪心を抱く人は皆無であったということである。今日に至るまで日本は、原子力基本法（1955年制定）や非核三原則で厳しく自らを律するだけでなく、1970年に発効した核兵器不拡散条約(ＮＰＴ)の締約国として、国際原子力機関（ＩＡＥＡ）による厳格な核査察（保障措置）を誠実に受け入れ、平和利用の模範生たる地位を確立している。
ところが、広く世界を眺めると、冷戦終結前後からＮＰＴ加盟国でありながら、平和利用と称して秘密裡に核兵器開発を企む国々―イラク、イラン、北朝鮮等いわゆる「ならず者国家」―が続出し、国際政治上の重大問題となってきた。とくに昨年末から今年初めにかけて、パキスタンを中心とする「核の闇市場」の存在が明らかになるにつれ、核拡散状況の深刻さが一段とはっきりしてきた。
このような状況を放置すれば、今や事実上形骸化したとも言えるＮＰＴ体制の崩壊は必至で、マンハッタン計画の責任者ロバート・オッペンハイマー博士たちが60年前に予言した通り“パンドラの箱”から飛び出た「核」は癌細胞のように拡大し、ついに地球を死に追いやってしまうだろう。もはや手遅れ、処置なしという悲観論も聞かれるほどだ。
しかし、だからと言って、ＮＰＴ体制をみすみす崩壊させてよいわけがない。核兵器そのものを違法化する実定国際法が存在しない以上、非核兵器国に核兵器の開発を禁止するＮＰＴ体制は唯一の法規範として是が非でも堅持しなければならない。では、そのためには具体的にどうしたらいいのか。
今後のテロ攻撃に核兵器が使用される可能性を最も恐れる米国のブッシュ大統領は、去る２月１１日の国防大学での演説で一連の新構想を提案した。すなわち同大統領は、ＩＡＥＡによる国際核査察（保障措置）の強化を定めた「追加議定書」の重要性は認めるものの、同議定書の批准国がまだ少数に止まっており、あまり多くを期待できない現状に鑑み、ＩＡＥＡの枠組み外で、「核供給国グループ（ＮＳＧ）」―原子力技術先進40カ国で構成されている―に呼びかけて、今後は、「大規模で、すでに稼動中の再処理・濃縮施設」を持っていない国々には当該施設や技術を一切輸出しないようにしようというものだ。
周知のように核爆弾にはウラン型（広島型）とプルトニウム型（長崎型）の二種類があり、ウラン235を90％以上に濃縮する施設、または使用済み核燃料を再処理して純度の高いプルトニウムを抽出する施設が必要である。そこで、ブッシュ提案では、現在すでに大規模な濃縮、再処理施設を有する五大国（米、ロ、英、仏、中）と、20年以上前に当該技術を確立しすでにかなりの運転実績を持つ日本の計６ヶ国を除いたすべての国を禁止の対象としている（インド、パキスタン、イスラエル等もこの種の技術の既得国ではあるが、ＮＰＴ非加盟国なので、やはり禁止対象に含まれるとみられる）。
こうしたブッシュ提案には、当然ながら、非核兵器国にも原子力平和利用技術に関する「奪い得ない権利」を保障したＮＰＴ第４条違反であるという批判が強い。そこで、ＩＡＥＡのエルバラダイ事務局長（エジプト人）は、ブッシュ提案より早く、昨年秋以来、非核兵器国が単独ではなく多数国による国際管理の下で再処理、濃縮、さらにプルトニウムや使用済み核燃料の管理等を行うことができるようなシステムの創設を提唱している。ブッシュ、エルバラダイ両構想にはそれぞれ一長一短があり、今後両者がどのように調整されるのか予断を許さないが、狙いは共に核拡散防止にあるわけであり、なんとかして大多数の国の納得が得られるような効果的なシステムを構築して行かなければならない。
その際とりわけ重要なのは日本の役割である。自らは茨城県東海村と青森県六ヶ所村に本格的な再処理工場（ただし六ヶ所工場は再来年運転開始予定）と濃縮工場を持ち、ブッシュ構想でも「既得権益国」と認められているから大丈夫だと言って傍観者的、自己中心的態度を取ることは許されない。むしろ、唯一の被爆国として非核に徹し、しかも核兵器国以外で唯一核燃料サイクル活動（濃縮、再処理）を公認されている日本は、自らの知見と経験を最大限に活用して、安全で効率的な原子力平和利用が担保されるような国際システムの構築に尽力するべきであり、それが核不拡散体制の崩壊を防ぐ最善の道である。
（筆者は東海大学教授。エネルギー環境外交研究会会長。元外交官。）
日本が他の国とくらべて独特なのは、日本の原子力関係者の頭には最初から平和利用しかなく、これを転用して核兵器を作ろうなどという邪心を抱く人は皆無であったということである。今日に至るまで日本は、原子力基本法（1955年制定）や非核三原則で厳しく自らを律するだけでなく、1970年に発効した核兵器不拡散条約(ＮＰＴ)の締約国として、国際原子力機関（ＩＡＥＡ）による厳格な核査察（保障措置）を誠実に受け入れ、平和利用の模範生たる地位を確立している。
ところが、広く世界を眺めると、冷戦終結前後からＮＰＴ加盟国でありながら、平和利用と称して秘密裡に核兵器開発を企む国々―イラク、イラン、北朝鮮等いわゆる「ならず者国家」―が続出し、国際政治上の重大問題となってきた。とくに昨年末から今年初めにかけて、パキスタンを中心とする「核の闇市場」の存在が明らかになるにつれ、核拡散状況の深刻さが一段とはっきりしてきた。
このような状況を放置すれば、今や事実上形骸化したとも言えるＮＰＴ体制の崩壊は必至で、マンハッタン計画の責任者ロバート・オッペンハイマー博士たちが60年前に予言した通り“パンドラの箱”から飛び出た「核」は癌細胞のように拡大し、ついに地球を死に追いやってしまうだろう。もはや手遅れ、処置なしという悲観論も聞かれるほどだ。
しかし、だからと言って、ＮＰＴ体制をみすみす崩壊させてよいわけがない。核兵器そのものを違法化する実定国際法が存在しない以上、非核兵器国に核兵器の開発を禁止するＮＰＴ体制は唯一の法規範として是が非でも堅持しなければならない。では、そのためには具体的にどうしたらいいのか。
今後のテロ攻撃に核兵器が使用される可能性を最も恐れる米国のブッシュ大統領は、去る２月１１日の国防大学での演説で一連の新構想を提案した。すなわち同大統領は、ＩＡＥＡによる国際核査察（保障措置）の強化を定めた「追加議定書」の重要性は認めるものの、同議定書の批准国がまだ少数に止まっており、あまり多くを期待できない現状に鑑み、ＩＡＥＡの枠組み外で、「核供給国グループ（ＮＳＧ）」―原子力技術先進40カ国で構成されている―に呼びかけて、今後は、「大規模で、すでに稼動中の再処理・濃縮施設」を持っていない国々には当該施設や技術を一切輸出しないようにしようというものだ。
周知のように核爆弾にはウラン型（広島型）とプルトニウム型（長崎型）の二種類があり、ウラン235を90％以上に濃縮する施設、または使用済み核燃料を再処理して純度の高いプルトニウムを抽出する施設が必要である。そこで、ブッシュ提案では、現在すでに大規模な濃縮、再処理施設を有する五大国（米、ロ、英、仏、中）と、20年以上前に当該技術を確立しすでにかなりの運転実績を持つ日本の計６ヶ国を除いたすべての国を禁止の対象としている（インド、パキスタン、イスラエル等もこの種の技術の既得国ではあるが、ＮＰＴ非加盟国なので、やはり禁止対象に含まれるとみられる）。
こうしたブッシュ提案には、当然ながら、非核兵器国にも原子力平和利用技術に関する「奪い得ない権利」を保障したＮＰＴ第４条違反であるという批判が強い。そこで、ＩＡＥＡのエルバラダイ事務局長（エジプト人）は、ブッシュ提案より早く、昨年秋以来、非核兵器国が単独ではなく多数国による国際管理の下で再処理、濃縮、さらにプルトニウムや使用済み核燃料の管理等を行うことができるようなシステムの創設を提唱している。ブッシュ、エルバラダイ両構想にはそれぞれ一長一短があり、今後両者がどのように調整されるのか予断を許さないが、狙いは共に核拡散防止にあるわけであり、なんとかして大多数の国の納得が得られるような効果的なシステムを構築して行かなければならない。
その際とりわけ重要なのは日本の役割である。自らは茨城県東海村と青森県六ヶ所村に本格的な再処理工場（ただし六ヶ所工場は再来年運転開始予定）と濃縮工場を持ち、ブッシュ構想でも「既得権益国」と認められているから大丈夫だと言って傍観者的、自己中心的態度を取ることは許されない。むしろ、唯一の被爆国として非核に徹し、しかも核兵器国以外で唯一核燃料サイクル活動（濃縮、再処理）を公認されている日本は、自らの知見と経験を最大限に活用して、安全で効率的な原子力平和利用が担保されるような国際システムの構築に尽力するべきであり、それが核不拡散体制の崩壊を防ぐ最善の道である。
（筆者は東海大学教授。エネルギー環境外交研究会会長。元外交官。）
一般社団法人 日本英語交流連盟