| Publication |
2014.
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| Summary/Abstract |
The nuclear security summit that took place in The Hague in March was likely the penultimate gathering in the process that President Barack Obama started in 2009. As with the previous summits, in 2010 and 2012, participating states made a number of pledges to reduce the amounts of nuclear material within their borders and to better secure remaining nuclear and other radioactive materials. In one of the major developments of this year's summit, several states went further than before in taking concrete steps aimed at enhancing the legal and regulatory framework with a view to ensuring sustainability of nuclear security efforts. This was manifested most directly in the initiative on strengthening nuclear security implementation, announced by the Netherlands, South Korea, and the United States and joined by two-thirds of the participating states.[1] The initiative was one of the most publicized outcomes of the meeting and arguably the most significant.[2] It looks toward laying the groundwork for a more robust international system based on national commitments to the application of international principles and guidelines[3] and to continuous improvement of nuclear security regimes through peer reviews and other methods. The question is how this initiative will actually be put into practice. The commitment to conduct self-assessments, host peer reviews periodically, and act on recommendations stemming from such reviews is fairly clearly formulated, whereas some of the language is quite general, referring to "meet[ing] the intent of" international nuclear security guidelines and "subscrib[ing] to" a set of fundamental principles developed under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Therefore, although the initiative holds potentially far-reaching consequences for the future strength of the nuclear security regime, such consequences will largely depend on how subscribing states choose to interpret the commitments. If the initiative is to have a strong impact, states will need to take the view that it lays a foundation on which they can build through further actions rather than being a final goal in itself.
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