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Assuming implementation, the JCPOA contains a number of innovations that could in future years be applied in other countries to bolster confidence that their nuclear programs will be exclusively peaceful. Wider adoption of these measures could facilitate the cooperative spread of nuclear energy while reducing fear of proliferation. Moreover, these provisions exemplify steps countries would have to take in implementing nuclear disarmament someday.

It will take considerable time and patient give-and-take bargaining to persuade Russia and other influential players in nuclear diplomacy to build on the JCPOA, but there is no need to rush. Beyond the Republic of Korea, there are no other states on the near horizon that have the capability and intention to initiate a new fuel-cycle program.

The nuclear nonproliferation regime derives its legitimacy and basic principles from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). But, the authors of the treaty necessarily left some of its key terms vaguely defined, recognizing that technology and history would evolve in ways that could not be predicted in 1968 when the NPT was completed. For example, when the treaty mentions the right to peaceful nuclear energy, in Article IV, it does not enumerate specific technologies that states should be allowed (or not allowed) to acquire for this purpose. The NPT’s injunction against acquiring nuclear weapons does not define what constitutes a nuclear weapon or a nuclear-weapon program. Nor does the treaty specify what verifiable nuclear disarmament should entail—that is, what nuclear and related matériel, equipment, and activities a nuclear-disarmed state would not be allowed to retain, and under what forms of verification.

The JCPOA innovatively fills in each of these lacunae in the NPT. While it does not settle or fully address these complex issues, it offers potentially important building blocks for doing so. For example, the JCPOA, in practice, establishes that the NPT does not a priori deny states the “right” to acquire and utilize capabilities to produce fissile materials for peaceful purposes. Critics have identified this as a major shortcoming. The agreement makes it easier for other states to insist that they, too, should be allowed to enrich uranium, which many observers fear could exacerbate proliferation risks. But the JCPOA also defines conditions, as well as monitoring and verification mechanisms, that would significantly bolster international confidence that a state’s fuel-cycle activities are exclusively peaceful.

Importantly, the agreement provides a model for making a state’s fuel-cycle activities commensurate with demonstrable civilian requirements. It limits the level of enrichment to 3.67 percent, which is the typical requirement for nuclear power reactors. (For nuclear weapons, uranium needs to be enriched to 90 percent.) Thus, while a state could in the future insist on enriching uranium, the international community could cite the JCPOA as a basis for requiring low limits on the level of enrichment. The agreement constrains the volume of enriched uranium that the state may accumulate before it demonstrably needs large quantities of nuclear-reactor fuel. In the case of Iran, this limit is 300 kilograms for a period of fifteen years, with an understanding that after that period Iran’s enrichment capability would expand according to a plan to be shared in advance with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). There is little reason why states wishing to begin peaceful enrichment programs in the future should not accept similar constraints……..http://carnegieendowment.org/2016/06/09/iran-deal-s-building-blocks-of-better-nuclear-order/j1nh