After several aborted attempts during the past 50 years, Thailand is on the brink of launching a nuclear-power programme. Its proposed schedule of building two nuclear reactors by 2020 and two more by 2021 is overly ambitious, given the embryonic state of its nuclear infrastructure and its dependence on extensive foreign assistance.
Legislative hurdles and foreign investors' concerns about political instability and liability are likely to be problematic. Budgetary constraints due to the impact of the global economic slowdown will add to the hurdles, as will public scepticism over the safety of nuclear energy.
However, a visit to Bangkok in mid-November reinforced my view that these difficulties are unlikely to derail Thailand's nuclear plans altogether. Thailand's rationale for developing nuclear energy is entirely benign: a desire for greater energy security combined with concerns over the environmental impact of burning fossil fuels.
Safe and sustainable implementation of nuclear power requires a strong legal and regulatory framework, with a licensing and oversight body that is truly independent. Regulators must be free from political influence and bureaucratically separate from organisations in charge of operating nuclear facilities and promoting nuclear energy.
Thailand's Office of Atoms for Peace already has this independent regulatory authority.
Choosing the right vendor will be key. Cognisant that a nuclear accident anywhere is a nuclear accident everywhere, akin to the impact that accidents at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island had in bringing nuclear plans around the world to a halt for nearly 20 years, nuclear vendors have more than an altruistic motive to supply nuclear technology responsibly.
Not all foreign suppliers, however, insist that any nuclear power plants that come online meet the highest standards of safety and security. Nor do all vendors provide the same level of wider safety and technological support.
This is particularly the case with vendors that are not as engaged across all levels of infrastructure as are companies such as US-based Westinghouse and France's Areva. Nuclear suppliers should also agree on minimum safety requirements on the part of recipient countries, including adherence to IAEA safety, security and nuclear-waste conventions. Supplier responsibility would also be enhanced by transparency in nuclear-cooperation agreements, such as in the United States, where they are on the public record and subject to congressional oversight.
Only two Asean countries have ratified the Convention on Nuclear Safety, and only three are parties to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material. Thailand is not yet among these states.
No Asean country is yet party to the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management, and the only Asean state which is party to any nuclear liability convention is the Philippines.
In addition to fulfilling such major commitments, there is more that Asean members can do on a smaller scale to create the institutional bonds that will be necessary to create regional unity, such as through regular and proactive participation in mechanisms like the Steering Committee of the Asian Nuclear Safety Network.
Transparency is also vital. IAEA compre hensive safeguards are the internationally mandated standard but they do not provide sufficient assurance of peaceful use. At a minimum, they should be buttressed by the safeguards of the Additional Protocol. Even this measure, however, is not a panacea against proliferation.
The Additional Protocol cannot stop a determined proliferator, nor does it address threats associated with nuclear smuggling. It does, however, give the IAEA further access rights and requires additional information from states that together help the agency provide credible assurances regarding the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activity.
The Additional Protocol thus has become an international norm for confirming a state's non-proliferation credentials and should be ratified and implemented by all states in the region, as everywhere else in the world. Countries that are seriously considering adopting a national nuclear power programme should therefore ratify and implement the Additional Protocol as one of their first steps.
Thailand signed this instrument in 2005 but has not yet finished bringing domestic law into conformity with it, or preparing the declaration required under the Additional Protocol. Countries considering supplying nuclear-power technology may well require the Additional Protocol as a condition of supply. Quiet encouragement from potential suppliers could strengthen the incentives for bringing this safeguards-strengthening measure into force in countries such as Thailand that have not yet finished the ratification process.
When implementation of the Additional Protocol is the norm in Asean, its members would then have more moral authority to encourage ratification in Burma, where the transparency afforded by the Additional Protocol will bring the most benefit to regional security.
Mark Fitzpatrick is director of the Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Programme at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, and Editor of the recently published IISS strategic dossier on Preventing Nuclear Dangers in Southeast Asia and Australasia.
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