nuclear-news

No definite actions decided on by Nuclear Security Summit

no specific reduction targets [for enriched uranium and plutonium]

The Nuclear Security Summit has no legally binding force to get other countries to reduce nuclear materials. It must rely on the voluntary pledges of participating countries to abide by the communiqué.

Another weakness of the communiqué is that it states no mechanism to verify the commitments made by each country.

Nuclear Security Summit Ends Without Clear Targets, http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2012/03/28/2012032800852.html  The Chosunilbo, 28 March 12,
The Seoul Nuclear Security Summit ended Tuesday with the leaders of 53 countries unanimously adopting a communiqué that encourages nations to take all possible steps and cooperate to secure vulnerableweapons-grade fissile material by 2014.    President Lee Myung-bak, who chaired the summit, told reporters its main achievement was steps to
reduce highly enriched uranium and plutonium, which are key to preventing nuclear terrorism.

Lee stressed that the countries agreed to submit their own plans to
reduce highly enriched uranium by the end of next year and praised the
agreement as “very meaningful” in that the countries voluntarily
agreed to reduce their stockpiles. But the communiqué contained no
specific reduction targets.

Critics said that in reality no progress has been made in terms of
reducing nuclear materials and that the communiqué is no significant
improvement over commitments made during the first Nuclear Security
Summit in Washington in 2010, where the U.S., Russia and other
participating countries agreed to reduce nuclear materials equivalent
to 20,000 nuclear weapons and actually lowered materials equivalent to
3,000.

The Seoul communiqué failed to present any target, however modest.
Shin Chang-hoon of the Asan Institute for Policy Studies said, “The
Nuclear Security Summit has no legally binding force to get other
countries to reduce nuclear materials. It must rely on the voluntary
pledges of participating countries to abide by the communiqué.”

Another weakness of the communiqué is that it states no mechanism to
verify the commitments made by each country.

March 28, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, politics international