This outline of possible treaty provisions was presented by George Bunn to the Fissile Material Information Workshop co-sponsored by the Permanent Mission of Canada the UN in Geneva and by the Institute for Science and International Security on January 25-26, 1999. The outline's purpose was to present the major options for the scope of the treaty and to attempt to describe in a general way the consequences for verification of the choice of each of these options. Treaty language is in quotation marks below. Explanations are in square brackets.

Art.I SCOPE [which will affect verification provisions]

A. Production, Acquisition, Transfer, Assistance

1.[Basic cut-off obligation] "Each State Party undertakes not to produce fissile material for use in nuclear weapons or in any other nuclear explosive devices, and to prohibit and prevent any such production at any place under its jurisdiction or control."

2. [Acquisition by other means than production] "Each State Party undertakes not to acquire by any other means fissile material for use in nuclear weapons or in any other nuclear explosive devices, and to prohibit and prevent any such acquisition at any place under its jurisdiction and control." [This obligation seems a useful addition to par.1 but may need more intrusive verification in the territory of nuclear-weapon parties to the NPT and of non-parties to the NPT than par.1 above requires. In non-nuclear-weapon NPT parties, an obligation similar to this is verified by full-scope IAEA safeguards pursuant to IAEA INFCIRC/153, and INFCIRC/540, the new model protocol.]

3.[ No transfer and no assistance in acquiring] "Each State Party undertakes not to transfer to any state, person or other entity any fissile material for use in nuclear weapons or in other nuclear explosive devices; not to assist any state, person or other entity in the acquisition of fissile material for use in nuclear weapons or in other nuclear explosive devices; and to prohibit and prevent any such transfers or assistance at any place under its jurisdiction and control." [ For somewhat similar provisions in NPT (Art.I, II and III.2), there is no specified verification except full-scope IAEA safeguards on the nuclear activities of possible recipients that are non-nuclear weapon NPT parties. Under a new treaty, for potential recipients that are NPT nuclear-weapon states or non-parties to NPT, how would this obligation be verified?]

B. Newly-produced, acquired or transferred stocks

1. [Stocks covered by basic cut-off obligation] "The undertakings in part A.1 of this article apply to all fissile material under the jurisdiction and control of each State Party produced after the effective date of the Treaty for that Party."

2.[ Alternative to cover, in addition, stocks acquired by other means] "The undertakings in parts A.1 and A.2 of this article apply to any fissile material produced or acquired by a State Party after the Treaty enters into force for that Party."

3.[ Addition for stocks covered by the obligation not to transfer to, or assist, others] "The undertaking in part A.3 of this article shall apply to all fissile material under the jurisdiction and control of each State Party on and after the effective date of this Treaty for that Party." [ It makes little sense to prohibit transfer of just newly produced fissile material. Yet if all fissile material must be accounted for to verify this obligation in nuclear-weapon state NPT parties and in non-parties to the NPT, the verification will be much more intrusive. The full-scope safeguards in non-weapon NPT parties probably are adequate to verify this obligation for them.]

C. "All stocks" alternative.

1. "The undertakings in Arts. I.A.1, 2 and 3 not to produce, acquire or transfer shall apply to all fissile material under the jurisdiction and control of each State Party on and after the effective date of this Treaty for that Party." [This would apply to fissile material in nuclear weapons. To verify it might require IAEA safeguards (or the equivalent) on nuclear weapons and nuclear-weapon fissile materials held by nuclear-weapon state parties to the NPT or by non-parties to the NPT. While it would not prohibit necessary cleaning of aged fissile material in weapons and putting that material back in weapons, would that process have to be verified?]

D. Stocks-Excess-to-Weapons Alternative.

1.[Instead of including all stocks, add to the basic cut-off and related stocks covered by Art. I. B those stocks formerly associated with weapons that have been declared excess to weapons and dedicated to peaceful uses.] "The undertakings not to produce or acquire in Art. I.A.1 and A.2 shall apply to all stocks produced or acquired by a State Party on or after the entry into force of this Treaty for that State Party, and to all stocks dedicated to peaceful uses after that date. The undertakings of that Party in Art.I.A.3 not to transfer or assist shall apply to all stocks of that Party."

E. "Time-Bound" reductions addition to stocks provisions.

"All fissile material under the jurisdiction and control of any Party to this Treaty that has not been dedicated to peaceful uses under international verification shall be so dedicated at the rate of ___ per cent of the total original amount each year after the entry into force of this Treaty." [This would require declaration of all stocks of fissile material in or for weapons after the Treaty went into force, and IAEA or other international verification that the declaration was correct. If the percentage specified in the treaty were ten, then, after ten years, there would be no more nuclear weapons or weapons stocks. Thus there would be no need to specify the year for getting to zero.]

Art. II. DEFINITIONS.

Fissile Material [ plutonium, highly enriched uranium plus ?]

Production of fissile material [reprocessing , enrichment plus?]

Fissile Material Production Facilities [reprocessing and enrichment plants plus?]

Etc.

Art. III. VERIFICATION ORGANIZATION.

[IAEA or create a new organization to do much of what the IAEA does now in verifying production of fissile material and following that material to reactors, storage facilities, etc. in the territory of non-nuclear-weapon state NPT parties ? ]

Art. IV. VERIFICATION REQUIREMENTS.

[In general, verification of the basic cut-off obligation would be focused on production facilities and on following fissile material produced in those facilities after it leaves them.]

A. Declarations.

1.[For basic cut-off obligation, declaration of facilities for production] "Within --- days of the entry into force of this Treaty, each State Party shall declare all existing fissile material production facilities, including those shut down, those decommissioned and those still in operation."

2.[For basic cut-off obligation, declaration of fissile materials subject to treaty] "Within --- days of the entry into force for it, each State Party shall declare all fissile materials it has produced since entry into force. At the end of [stated period] after such entry into force and at the end of each such period after that, each State Party shall declare all fissile materials produced during the preceding period. Declarations shall state where the materials were produced, where they are at the date of the declaration, what form they are in, and what is planned for them in the period ahead."

3. [For alternative or added obligations beyond basic cutoff in Art.I.C, D or E, declarations of all fissile material, or all that from weapons materials that has been dedicated to peaceful uses, would be necessary.]

B. Verification of Declared Facilities.

1.[For basic cut-off obligation, the verification of declared facilities could be much like IAEA monitoring of declared uranium enrichment and plutonium separation facilities for non-nuclear-weapon NPT parties, but would not need to be as comprehensive in other respects as full-scope safeguards. The inspecting agency would, in addition, follow the fissile material downstream when it leaves the production facility to be used in reactors or stored. The purpose would be to verify that the material produced after the treaty comes into force is not used to make weapons. ]

C. Verification of Undeclared Facilities.

[For the basic cut-off obligation, monitoring for undeclared facilities is not a new kind of monitoring problem for non-nuclear-weapon NPT parties that are subject to both the IAEA's INFCIRC/153 and its INFCIRC/540, the new Protocol. For nuclear-weapon state NPT parties and for NPT non-parties, it may present difficulties not yet dealt with by the IAEA in monitoring non-nuclear-weapon NPT parties. But for all three classes of parties to the new treaty, the purpose would be to verify that there are no undeclared facilities producing fissile material for weapons.]

D. Naval propulsion and other non-explosive military fissile material.

[IAEA INFCIRC 153, par.14 has provisions that relate to this problem, though their effectiveness has been questioned.]

E. Added provisions if alternatives other than basic cut-off (and related provisions in Art. I.B above) are chosen.

1."All stocks" alternative. [ As suggested above, adding obligations adds to the verification requirements. If all stocks are included, then all stocks (including weapons) would presumably be subject to verification. What would the purpose of verification be? The basic prohibition in Art.A.1 is against producing fissile material for use in nuclear weapons, not against, for example, remaking nuclear weapons from cleaned-up fissile material from old weapons already possessed by the party. How would the disclosure of weapons information to inspectors be prevented?]

2. Stocks-excess-to-weapons alternative. [ Assuming the fissile material is dedicated to peaceful uses and not in weapons forms the disclosure of which might present security problems, this alternative would alleviate many of the problems of the preceding alternative. Verification would assure that the dedication to peaceful uses was observed.]

F. Entry Into Force

"This Treaty shall enter into force 180 days after the date of deposit of instruments of ratification by all of the following: China, France, India, Israel, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States and -----."
[The NPT provided for entry into force after ratification by the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the United States and any forty other states. The CTBT provides for entry into force after ratification by the 44 states that were 1996 CD participants and have reactors. Many other provisions are possible.]

ADDITIONAL ARTICLES will be needed for, e.g., ratification, depositary, amendments, review and other conferences of the parties, dispute settlement, etc. If a new organization must be created, many articles will be needed just for that purpose.