Archives

You are here: Home » Archive by category "NAPSNet" ( Page 70)

Nuclear Security at the Seoul Summit

Coming in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear accident, which starkly reminded the world of the perils posed by nuclear materials, the Seoul Nuclear Security Summit faces a host of challenges. Sharon Squassoni lays out what is at stake, what outcomes can be expected and those that, unfortunately, cannot.

Sharon Squassoni is Director and Senior Fellow at the Proliferation Prevention Program of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Nuclear Safety and Security After 3-11

The earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011 did more than just devastate Japan and unleash a local nuclear disaster. Peter Hayes notes that the events at the Fukushima nuclear plant exposed a host of design flaws in current nuclear technology whose solutions are linked to dramatically unsettling security issues.

Peter Hayes is Executive Director of the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability.

The Seoul Nuclear Security Summit: New Thinking in Northeast Asia?

James Goodby and Markku Heiskanen write “that the time for a more active diplomacy in the Korean Peninsula is approaching. And that refers not only to solving the North Korean nuclear issue but also to several legacies dating from World War II and the Korean War. The ultimate goal should be to sign a peace treaty to end formally the Korean War, which concluded only with an armistice agreement in 1953, and to reunify Korea in one way or another. There is some well-founded hope that the year 2012 could open a new era in multilateral efforts to finally construct a new post-Cold War political and security architecture in Northeast Asia.”

James Goodby is former US Ambassador to Finland. He does not speak for the current administration. He is a member of the American Academy of Diplomacy.

Markku Heiskanen is former senior Finnish diplomat, and currently Senior Associate and Program Director of The Asia Institute at the Kyung Hee University in Seoul.

A Northeast Asia Nuclear Weapon Free Zone with a Three-plus-Three Arrangement

Hiromichi Umebayashi, President of the Peace Depot, assesses the prospects for a Northeast Asian Nuclear Weapons Free Zone (NEA-NWFZ) and the applicability of lessons learned during the establishment of similar treaties in other regions of the world. He writes, “there are specific wisdoms to be found in the existing NWFZ treaties . . . One is related to the provision for the entry-into-force of the treaty. If one or more state parties have concern about others’ possible noncompliance with a hard-woven NEA-NWFZ treaty, one could invent a . . . certain kind of waiving system such as the one adopted in the Tlatelolco Treaty. Also, learning from the precedent of ABACC, it seems worthwhile to re-examine the possibility of South-North (North-South) Joint Nuclear Control Commission, which is stipulated by the 1992 Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, or its modification, as the first step of confidence building measures in the region.”

This report is from the East Asia Nuclear Security workshop held on November 11, 2011 in Tokyo, Japan.
Papers and presentations given at the East Asia Nuclear Workshop are available here, along with the full agenda, participant list and a workshop photo gallery.

Policy Forum 12-05: The DPRK, the Nuclear Issue and the International Community: What Went Wrong, Why, What can be done in the Future

Colin McAskill acted as an advisor for a decade during the period of the ‘Bullion Shipments’ into London and acted as a mandated representative for the DPRK during the Banco Delta Asia banking crisis in Macau. In this article Colin writes, “The stability established by a smooth transition of power has created a window of opportunity to put the past behind and re-open a new phase of negotiations to put in place a lasting agreement that would launch a nuclear free Korean Peninsula, and usher in a new era of peaceful coexistence. Given KJ-U’s young age, this opportunity may not reoccur for a very long time.