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Suggested Citation:"Workshop Background." National Research Council. 2006. Protection, Control, and Accounting of Nuclear Materials: International Challenges and National Programs: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11343.
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Workshop Background

As part of their responses to the terrorist attacks in the United States in September 2001, the National Academies and the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) formed parallel committees on U.S.-Russian Cooperation on Nuclear Nonproliferation in early 2002, informally creating a joint committee. With funding from the Nuclear Threat Initiative and the MacArthur Foundation, the joint committee has developed and pursued a number of collaborative projects. The workshop described in this report was one of them. This joint activity was co-chaired by Academician Nikolai P. Laverov of the RAS and Professor John P. Holdren of Harvard University, and its membership was evenly divided between Americans and Russians. For the purpose of planning the workshop, the committee formed a working group whose members were Professor William C. Potter of the Monterey Institute of International Studies, Dr. Siegfried Hecker of Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Academician Nikolai N. Ponomarev-Stepnoi of the Kurchatov Institute. Mark Mullen of Los Alamos National Laboratory, who served as an unpaid consultant to the committee, substantially assisted the group in facilitating the workshop and identifying its key themes.

One of the many advantages of holding the workshop at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) headquarters was that it facilitated the participation of several experts from the IAEA staff, senior representatives of the agency, and three ambassadors from IAEA Member States. The workshop had a strong international character, as non-IAEA participants came from India, Japan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Sweden, and the United States. A representative of Pakistan attended as an observer. The quality and utility of the workshop discussions were significantly enhanced by the wide range of perspectives and expertise that this

Suggested Citation:"Workshop Background." National Research Council. 2006. Protection, Control, and Accounting of Nuclear Materials: International Challenges and National Programs: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11343.
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group of participants contributed. The list of participants may be found in Appendix A and the agenda may be found in Appendix B.

The presentations and discussions fell roughly into five topical categories. Following a brief overview of the substantive context in which the workshop took place, each of the topics below is addressed in turn:

  • overviews of the international nuclear nonproliferation context

  • international political efforts to address the dangers of nuclear weapons and materials

  • the legal and regulatory context for MPC&A

  • issues of “safeguards culture”

  • the IAEA’s nonproliferation and MPC&A programs

  • domestic MPC&A programs

During the final session of the workshop, Mark Mullen offered concluding remarks. His comments are described in the final section of the report.

Suggested Citation:"Workshop Background." National Research Council. 2006. Protection, Control, and Accounting of Nuclear Materials: International Challenges and National Programs: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11343.
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Page 3
Suggested Citation:"Workshop Background." National Research Council. 2006. Protection, Control, and Accounting of Nuclear Materials: International Challenges and National Programs: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11343.
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Protection, Control, and Accounting of Nuclear Materials: International Challenges and National Programs: Workshop Summary Get This Book
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The U.S. and Russian academies convened a workshop in 2003 for sharing best practices in nuclear materials protection, control, and accounting (MPC&A), including the status and application of remote monitoring technologies, personnel issues, and both national and international safeguards worldwide. The goals of the workshop were to identify areas in which the United States and Russia can promote best practices in MPC&A globally and expand U.S.-Russian cooperation on nuclear non-proliferation. The papers presented in the workshop and the outcomes of workshop discussions form the basis for this workshop summary.

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