‘Beyond Security, Towards Peace’: the official slogan of next week’s Nuclear Security Summit is plastered around Seoul. And as South Korea prepares to host the largest gathering of world leaders on its soil, hopes are high for significant agreements aimed at protecting nuclear materials, including preventing them from falling into the hands of terrorists.
However, the summit is already being overshadowed by North Korea’s planned satellite launch next month. Furthermore, while the agenda will include measures to better protect nuclear weapons-grade materials and nuclear facilities – as well as to prevent the illicit trafficking of nuclear materials – a weak international governance framework makes it virtually impossible for summits like these to effectively eliminate the nuclear-security threat.
When not trying to galvanise action against his northern neighbour’s proposed satellite launch, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has pledged that the summit will produce ‘more advanced and concrete’ results than the 2010 summit in Washington (pictured). These are likely to include a consensus pledge to minimise the use of highly enriched uranium (HEU) in civilian research reactors (although the time frame might not be finalised), and a promise on the part of more than ten countries to remove or eliminate their own weapons-grade materials. However, it could be six to ten yearsbefore these commitments are fulfilled.
The threat of radiological terrorism will be addressed for the first time at this political level. This discussion is much-needed given the abundance of radioactive sources and the disruption that can be caused by their dispersal. The importance of protecting sensitive nuclear-security information (such as the know-how for building bombs) will be also examined.
Though the chances are remote, in a worst-case scenario, a well-equipped terrorist group armed with about 60kg of HEU could produce a nuclear weapon of similar design and effect as the Hiroshima bomb. The global stockpile of HEU is estimated at about 1,440 tonnes, while that of weapons-grade plutonium is thought to be about 241 tonnes (although a plutonium weapon is harder to make). Not all material is secured to the highest standards. HEU is used in about 120 civil nuclear research reactors worldwide and these are less secure than military sites. More
