George Bunn

The legal status of U.S. negative security assurances to non‐nuclear weapon states

Has the United States committed itself not to use nuclear weapons against countries that forswear them? This article summarizes the gradual change in how this question has been answered from the 1960s, when the United States would not even say that it had no “intention” of using nuclear weapons against such countries, to 1995, when President Clinton made a formal but qualified declaration that it would not do so. It then describes why this declaration (a so-called “negative security assurance”) is binding—“legally binding” to some and “politically binding” to others— and discusses whether it precludes the use of nuclear weapons to counter a biological or chemical weapon attack.

Security assurances to non‐nuclear‐weapon states

George Bunn is a member of the Stanford University Center for International Security and Arms Control. As General Counsel of the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, he was one of the negotiators of the NPT, and served as Ambassador to the Geneva Conference on Disarmament after the NPT was signed in 1968. He has also worked for the US Atomic Energy and Nuclear Regulatory Commissions. Roland M. Timerbaev is a Visiting Professor and Ambassador-in-Residence at the Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS). Before retiring in January 1992, he led a 40-year career as a diplomat for the Soviet Foreign Ministry. He was the Soviet Unions and Russias Permanent Representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency. During his career, he participated in most of the important arms control negotiations involving the Soviet Union, including the NPT.

Raising international standards for protecting nuclear materials from theft and sabotage

The break-up of the Soviet Union resulted in conditions that focused attention on the possible risk of “loose nukes.” But the risk from insecure nuclear materials is not limited to the former Soviet Union; there is a need to ensure adequate physical protection on a global basis. Weapons-usable materials— plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU)—are spread widely around the world. A significant portion of these materials exists in civilian rather than military inventories. For example, some 12 countries (Belgium, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Russia, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States) possess among them over 180,000 kilograms of separated, civilian weapons-usable plutonium—as compared with approximately 250,000 kilograms in weapons or weapons reserves. It takes only a few kilograms of this material to make a nuclear weapon. If any of this material were stolen or illegally removed from an existing inventory, it could be used by another country or terrorist organization to make a bomb. Without effective cooperative efforts between many countries to guard weapons-usable materials, no government can protect its people from the threat of nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists or hostile states. In 1997, the US Department of Energy (DOE) established a goal of guarding weapons-usable materials just as well as US nuclear weapons are guarded. However, many civilian weapons-usable materials are not yet so protected even in the United States. And, even if they were, that might not reduce American risks much if other countries continued to maintain lower standards. Hostile countries or terrorist groups that want to obtain weapons-usable materials are likely to go wherever these materials can most easily be bought or stolen.

The status of Norms against nuclear testing

The Nonproliferation Review/Winter 1999 20 George Bunn, the first general counsel of the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, served on the US delegation that negotiated the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and later became a US ambassador to the Geneva disarmament conference. He is now working on nuclear nonproliferation problems as a consulting professor at the Stanford University Center for International Security and Cooperation. THE STATUS OF NORMS AGAINST NUCLEAR TESTING

Research Reactor Vulnerability to Sabotage by Terrorists

The September 11 terrorist attacks demonstrated that the technical competence, available resources, level of preparation and suicidal determination of contemporary terrorist groups like al Qaeda have greatly increased over the last decade. This article will consider the likelihood that sophisticated terrorist groups could successfully launch sabotage attacks against nuclear research reactors and cause radiological releases that threaten nearby populated neighborhoods. While the theft by terrorists of highly enriched uranium (HEU) from research reactors to make relatively simple gun-type nuclear explosives has been a concern for some time, the sabotage threat to research reactors—a threat which is independent of fuel enrichment—has not been widely addressed. Nuclear regulators should reassess the level of physical protection that research reactor operators provide in light of the increased terrorist threat.

U.S. standards for protecting weapons‐usable fissile material compared to international standards

George Bunn, the first general counsel of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, served on the U.S. delegation that negotiated the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and later became a U.S. ambassador to the Geneva disarmament conference. He is now working on nuclear nonproliferation problems as a consulting professor at the Stanford University Center for International Security and Cooperation.

Strengthening nuclear security against terrorists and thieves through better training

George Bunn, who served on the U.S. delegation that negotiated the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), is a Consulting Professor at the StanfordUniversity Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). Fritz Steinhausler is a Professor of Physics and Biophysics at the University of Salzburg in Austria and a Visiting Professor at CISAC. Lyudmila Zaitseva is a Visiting Researcher at CISAC who is on the staff of the National Nuclear Center of Kazakhstan. All three work on the Stanford-CISAC project,“Strengthening Global Practices for Protecting Nuclear Material Against Theft and Sabotage.”

Making progress on a fissile material cut‐off treaty after the South Asian tests

George Bunn was the first General Counsel of ACDA, a U.S. delegate to the predecessor of the Conference on Disarmament (CD) when it discussed a fissile material cut-off treaty (FMCT), and a participant in the negotiation of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). He attended the April-May 1998 NPT Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) meeting in Geneva and was one of the experts invited to speak to a May 1998 conference organized by the Japanese government to consider the problems relating to the negotiation of an FMCT. He is currently a Consulting Professor at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Arms Control. Negotiations relating to a fissile material cut-off treaty (FMCT) have begun despite the failure of the Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva to establish a negotiating committee for that purpose. This essay describes the reasons for the failure at the CD, the conduct of related negotiations elsewhere, a new attempt to deal with FMCT technical problems on the fringes of the CD, and the significance of the FMCT to arms control and disarmament after the recent South Asian tests. FMCT negotiations may offer a realistic opportunity for the many countries that participate in the CD to help India and Pakistan pull back a bit from the brink of the crisis created by their respective nuclear tests.

The Duma‐Senate Logjam on arms control: What can be done?

George Bunn is Consulting Professor at Stanford University’s Institute for International Studies and Center for International Security and Arms Control. He was the first general counsel of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and one of the negotiators of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. John B. Rhinelander is senior counsel in the Washington, D.C., law firm of Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge. He was formerly deputy legal adviser to the Department of State and served as the legal adviser to the U.S. delegation that negotiated the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. pro quo promised to these non-weapon states for forswearing nuclear weapons for all time may well be seen as being denied. With both the nuclear negotiations promised for the Middle East peace process and U.S.-Russian nuclear reductions stymied, the seven Islamic governments that strongly criticized the NPT decision after it was made—Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, Iraq, Malaysia, Nigeria, and Syria— could form the nucleus of a Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) group threatening withdrawal from the NPT. 1