The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors approved a safeguard agreement that will apply to India’s nuclear facilities that are deemed “civilian” in character. This is but one hurdle that had to be overcome on the way to a US-India agreement on nuclear technology transfer. The next step is to obtain the consent of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), an international organization consisting of 45 nations that sell various forms of nuclear technology. After that, the US Congress must allow some legal leeway before the deal can enter into effect. The basis of the deal is that India would partition its ”military” from its “civilian” nuclear facilities, and all of the civilian facilities would go under IAEA safeguards. In exchange, the Indians would be eligible to receive nuclear technology and fuel. This would put them in a limbo position between nuclear weapon state (NWS) and non-nuclear weapon state (NNWS), but they would remain outside the nuclear nonproliferation treaty regime, so that distinction would remain somewhat irrelevant.
This is a tremendously controversial agreement for many reasons. First, India is not a member of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), and, as such, is not generally eligible for the type of technical cooperation that members of the NPT who have all of their facilities under safeguards are allowed. This sends an unpalatable message that it is not whether one is a NPT member in good-standing that matters, but rather whether you are friendly with America. Of course, we all understand that any system governed by rule of law (treaty law included) should treat relationships with the judge as irrelevant, and, instead, should be concerned with whether one is in compliance with the law. Nonproliferation proponents have good reason to believe that the US-India deal erodes the foundations of the global nuclear nonproliferation regime. States may reasonably conclude that whether they are members of the NPT and comply with safeguards is not important. What is important is whether the suppliers “like” them. If they don’t “like” them (e.g. Iran) then it doesn’t matter whether they are in the NPT and under safeguards agreements or out. If suppliers do like them (e.g. India) it doesn’t matter if they are not members, have unsafeguarded facilities, or, for that matter, have a history of engaging in provocative actions of nuclear testing. Putting this in the context of domestic rule of law, why not steal and then play golf with the judge, if the latter is what matters and not the former with respect to whether one is convicted or not. Besides resistance from nonproliferation advocates everywhere, states such as Pakistan are loudly outspoken about the unreasonableness of the agreement.
Second, in India the deal is controversial for entirely different reasons. It is controversial to many because it gives away a lot of the current options available, and purists don’t feel India should have to give these things up. India’s views have been steadfastly defined by the stance that it cannot accept or be party to such a discriminatory regime as the NPT. This is a hard point to argue. Why, in deed, should any country agree to accept some arbitrary year as the deadline past which no new states are allowed to acquire nuclear weapons? Either nuclear weapons have utility or they don’t, and, if they do, why should some states voluntarily deny themselves while others have full rights to them?
What motivates the deal? It is clear that there are benefits to be had from such a deal. The most important has to do with the value of gearing up emerging nations for life in the twenty-first century. It is clear that if massive and rapidly-developing states such as India and China repeat the growth behavior of the current industrialized nations, it will have a grave impact globally. If India uses the same mix of energy as it attempts to meet its needs as did a rising US, the effect on international market prices will be an astronomical monotonic rise. Furthermore, if India and China continue to emit carbon as the current batch of industrialized countries have , then global climate disruption may become exacerbated severely.
There is little reason to doubt both that the US-India deal is a bad deal for the global nuclear nonproliferation regime, but, at the same time, the world would benefit from India’s greater reliance on energy sources that are not fossil fuels and are low carbon emitting. This may be further reason to give heed to the need to move toward global disarmament as the only way to reconcile the many presently irreconcilable objectives, and to avoid the blatantly discriminatory arguments that must be put forth to advocate nonproliferation under the status quo.
