Completed arms control & disarmament projects

Project on strengthened nuclear safeguards
VERTIC promotes the strengthening of the nuclear safeguards regime operated by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is based in Vienna, Austria. Nuclear safeguards are designed to verify the non-diversion of nuclear material from peaceful purposes to weapons purposes and are the principal means for verifying compliance with the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Improvements to safeguards include the adoption and implementation of Additional Protocols to the existing comprehensive safeguards agreements that states have signed with the IAEA.

VERTIC's research focuses on the progress of implementing the Additional Protocol, as well as the attempt by the IAEA to achieve integrated safeguards to improve effectiveness and efficiency. VERTIC also monitors the progress of other safeguards-related issues, including the Trilateral Initiative involving Russia, the US and the IAEA, and attempts to initiate negotiations on a fissile material 'cut-off' treaty at the Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva.

In its work VERTIC cooperates with the international safeguards community, including the IAEA, the European Safeguards Research and Development Association (ESARDA) and the International Safeguards Division (ISD) of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management (INMM), along with national safeguards offices, including including the Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office (ASNO).

• Project highlights
• Publications and online resources

Prospects for a standing United Nations verification mechanism for weapons of mass destruction
Since the end of United Nations inspections in Iraq in March 2003, which took place just prior to the coalition invasion, there has been increasing debate about the future of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC). The organization, which was established specifically to carry forward the unfinished work of monitoring, verifying and dismantling the remains of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) capabilities, has not been permitted to re-enter the country since the end of the war. The Security Council is divided over its fate, with some members, notably France and the United Kingdom, suggesting that it be transformed into a permanent, standing UN WMD verification body. VERTIC's project is examining the feasibility of this idea, beginning with the broader issue of whether there is a need for a permanent body.

Interim report on standing WMD verification mechanism for the UN
On 10 May 2005, Trevor Findlay, Director of the Canadian Centre for Treaty Compliance, presented an interim report on 'A Standing United Nations WMD Verification Body: Necessary And Feasible' to NGO representatives and delegates at the NPT Review Conference in New York. The study examines the options for establishing a standing United Nations monitoring, verification and inspection body to deal with weapons of mass destruction (WMD) issues.

The report, begun while Trevor was Executive Director of VERTIC, is one of four reports originally commissioned from VERTIC by the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission in Sweden. Following Trevor's appointment to the Canadian centre (based at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, Ottawa), the study became a cooperative project between the two centres.The final report was published in December 2005.

Publications and online resources
'Interim report: A standing United Nations WMD Verification Body: Necessary and Feasible'. Presentation by former VERTIC Executive Director Trevor Findlay to NGO representatives at the NPT Review Conference, New York, May 2005.

Verification Yearbook 2004
The lessons of UNSCOM and UNMOVIC
Trevor Findlay

Verification Yearbook 2003
'UNMOVIC in Iraq: opportunity lost
Trevor Findlay and Ben Mines

• 'A Standing United Nations WMD Verification Mechanism?' Presentation by Trevor Findlay, Executive Director of VERTIC, to a Regional Meeting, sponsored by the Japanese Government, with United Nations High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, Kyoto, Japan, 6 July 2004
• 'Preserving UNMOVIC: the Institutional Possibilities' by Trevor Findlay in Disarmament Diplomacy, Issue No. 76, March/April 2004

VERTIC's online Iraq Weapons Inspections Database provides access to a searchable database that details each of the inspections conducted by the UNMOVIC and IAEA inspectors between 27 November 2002 and 17 March 2003, when the inspectors were withdrawn from Iraq.