The key question therefore with respect to IAEA safeguards is: how to ensure that once India's civilian reactors go under safeguards in perpetuity, the country would
not be blackmailed by the withholding of nuclear fuel supplies, as the United States
did in Tarapur following Pokhran-I?
The preamble to the Safeguards Agreement notes that India is offering its civilian nuclear facilities for IAEA safeguards on the "essential basis" of "the conclusion of international cooperation arrangements creating the necessary conditions for India to obtain access to the international fuel market, including reliable, uninterrupted and continuous access to fuel supplies from companies in several nations, as well as support for an Indian effort to develop a strategic reserve of nuclear fuel to guard against any disruption of supply over the lifetime of India's reactors.
" The real point is that the preamble merely 'notes'
India's intentions in these respects. IAEA has neither any obligation regarding fuel supplies or building strategic reserves nor does this noting India's basis for this offer give India any additional rights through this agreement. Therefore to read into this clause either a guarantee for fuel supplies or IAEA's support for building up a strategic reserve is misleading the people.
"Corrective Measures": Vague and Ineffective
The preamble of the IAEA Agreement notes: "India may take corrective measures toensure uninterrupted operation of its civilian nuclear reactors in the event of disruption of foreign fuel supplies." Neither the "corrective measures" nor the precise relationship between these "corrective measures" and the in-perpetuity imposition is spelt out in any meaningful terms in the text. This means that should India for any reason decide to take the items subject to the Agreement out of IAEA safeguards on the contention that the "essential basis" no longer applies, it will open itself to the serious charge of violating an international agreement. In this connection, it is worth remembering that although India claims the right, under the provisions of the 1963 Indo-US agreement on Tarapur, to reprocess the considerable quantities of Tarapur spent fuel that have accumulated to India's great inconvenience and expense, it has not been able to enforce the claimed right to reprocess, which has long been disputed by the United States.
As against the vagueness of the "corrective measures" figuring in the preamble, what is spelt out clearly in the body of the agreement (Paragraph 32) is that India can withdraw its facilities from safeguards only if it is (a) jointly agreed between India and IAEA, and (b) if these facilities are no longer usable for any nuclear activity.
What does this mean? It can only mean that India can withdraw any facility it wants out of IAEA safeguards only if it strips it of all capability of producing nuclear energy and that too only after the IAEA determines that "the facility is no longer usable for any nuclear activity relevant from the point of view of safeguards." Even if the Agreement is terminated by mutual consent, the termination of safeguards on the items subject to the Agreement [these are material and facilities as defined in Paragraph 11(a)] would stay in place in accordance with GOV/1621 till all the conditions of GOV/1621 are met. The conditions of GOV/1621 are so stringent that the rights and obligations of the parties continue to apply on all nuclear materials till they have been returned or all fissionable materials supplied or produced goes out of the inventory – that is, until all the facilities and material, nuclear or non-nuclear, supplied to the country under these safeguards are either returned or consumed or no longer usable for any nuclear activity. Therefore, this provision will not allow a single reactor to be taken out of safeguards.
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