What path for nuclear security beyond the 2016 summit?

The news these days is full of reminders that civilian nuclear programs can pose serious security risks. In the wake of the Brussels terror attacks, Belgians are worried about the security of their country's nuclear installations. The Nuclear Threat Initiative reports that "nuclear facilities are not prepared for the growing cyber threat"—underscoring the danger that nuclear facilities could be vulnerable to acts of cyber-related sabotage or theft. And of course the 2011 accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which has rendered a significant area around the accident site uninhabitable for decades, provides an indication of what could occur if a nuclear facility's security were breached by malicious actors. These are but a few examples illustrating the myriad challenges the world faces in ensuring security for civilian nuclear programs.

So how, faced with so many challenges, should countries work together to address these multifaceted threats?

Part of the answer lies in one of the immutable rules of international affairs: If you want to make progress, organize a meeting. Meetings are action-forcing events in diplomacy; they force governments and bureaucracies to reach decisions on key issues. The gold standard, of course, is a meeting that involves heads of state. And if you can get heads of state to commit to attending more than one meeting on a particular issue, you've gained just about the highest level of political commitment that a country can provide, short of a legally binding agreement.

For these reasons, the Nuclear Security Summits—initiated in 2010 and held at the leader level every two years since—have represented a significant boost in the attention that the United States and other nations pay to preventing nuclear terrorism. The question is why the world should now abandon a summit process that has registered such significant progress in improving nuclear security.

Galvanizing progress. President Obama's 2009 Prague speech is remembered as a sweeping vision for working toward a world without nuclear weapons. But perhaps the speech's most tangible outcome arose from Obama's statement that "[W]e must ensure that terrorists never acquire a nuclear weapon. This is the most immediate and extreme threat to global security. … So today I am announcing a new international effort to secure all vulnerable nuclear material around the world within four years." The Nuclear Security Summits were born from this announcement.

The timeline for securing all vulnerable nuclear material has proven longer than the four years President Obama set as a goal. But the summits have galvanized progress toward securing nuclear materials in countries around the world. At the 2014 summit, for example, 12 nations jointly announced that they had eliminated highly enriched uranium from within their borders. The summits have also produced a set of efforts—to enhance, for example, the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism—that aim to strengthen international regimes protecting nuclear materials and preventing terrorists from obtaining them.

But even without taking into account the summits' specific outcomes, they have achieved one of their initial aims by inducing governments to focus attention at the highest level on nuclear security. They have maintained pressure on governments to take action. Without a summit process to focus attention, leaders rarely engage directly in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or its affiliated processes, even though this framework governs much of the world's efforts to bolster nuclear security. The result is that seemingly mundane—but incredibly important—activities such as ensuring security at nuclear power plants is often missing from the agenda when leaders meet. The summit process changes this dynamic. It puts leaders in a room together every two years to discuss nothing but nuclear security.

Moreover, the summits are designed so that leaders who wish to be seen as contributors to global security get a high-profile opportunity to make commitments to the security of nuclear materials—and to do so before the leaders of many of the world's largest, most powerful countries. The summit system also pressures nations into making concrete commitments. Few leaders who attend summits will wish to invite criticism by taking no action while there.

But the beauty of the summit system—or part of it, in any case—is that the summits are not the United Nations or the International Atomic Energy Agency. Thus action at the summits does not require consensus, or settling for the lowest common denominator. The summit process does strive for national commitments through consensus communiqués, but it also employs the novel mechanisms of "house gifts"—through which countries can make unilateral commitments to nuclear security—and "gift baskets"—through which smaller groups of nations can make multilateral commitments. This flexibility has contributed a great deal to the summits' workability.

Continued engagement. The work of improving nuclear security is still far from done. This year's Nuclear Security Index, produced by the Nuclear Threat Initiative, makes clear that too many nuclear materials and facilities around the world remain vulnerable. The vulnerabilities include the risk of cyber attack and sabotage. Indeed, the Nuclear Security Index includes a new sabotage ranking which demonstrates that "many countries considering nuclear power are struggling to put in place the basic measures necessary to prevent an act of sabotage that could result in a radiological release similar in scale to the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan."

At the Washington summit concluding on April 1, a consensus document will reportedly be released regarding the future of the summit process. It envisions embedding the summits' work more firmly within five international institutions and partnerships: the United Nations, the International Atomic Energy Agency, Interpol, the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, and the Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction. This makes sense. Political agreements reached at summits must be implemented, and the best way to monitor implementation is through the day-to-day work of existing institutions and partnerships.

But such immense challenges remain for nuclear security that the summit process should continue beyond President Obama's tenure. If nations are to continue making difficult commitments to prevent nuclear terrorism—if new action is to be galvanized while implementation of prior commitments is ensured—engagement at the leader level every two years still has a crucial role to play. No head of state can commit to regular summits on every important issue under the sun. But any head of state would be hard pressed to articulate why he or she can't dedicate a day, every two years, to rallying the world around preventing nuclear terrorism.

To end the summits now would be like stopping a race when you're in the lead. And nuclear security is not a race you want to lose.

In November 2015, up to 10 grams of the radioactive isotope iridium-192 were stolen from a storage facility near Basra, Iraq. The same month—and little more than two weeks after the Paris terrorist attacks—a suspect linked to those attacks was found with surveillance footage showing a high-ranking Belgian nuclear official. While the radioactive material missing in Iraq was eventually found (abandoned outside a gas station in a town nine miles from Basra), these two incidents have heightened fears that groups such as the Islamic State might obtain radioactive material and build a radiological dispersal device, commonly known as a dirty bomb.

Such incidents also emphasize why President Obama, in his 2009 Prague speech, said that the "most immediate and extreme threat to global security" was that terrorists might acquire a nuclear weapon. These concerns led him to initiate the Nuclear Security Summit process, which got under way in Washington the next year. But 2016 is both the last full year of Obama's presidency and the end of the summit process. The final summit—like the first, held in Washington—will help determine nuclear security's path going forward.

Much depends on whether a productive path is identified. The summits have led to some meaningful advances in nuclear security, but no permanent global regime for nuclear security has been established. The summit process has likewise failed to establish robust regional approaches to nuclear security. And the summits have produced no system for exerting control over military nuclear materials—an enormous failing when only a fraction of the world's nuclear material is in civilian hands. The most meaningful possible outcome at the fourth and final summit would be to establish a concrete plan for maintaining the momentum that the summits have already achieved.

Hits and misses. The summit process hasn't provided a magic solution to nuclear security threats. But it has yielded some concrete accomplishments. First and foremost, the summits have brought attention at the head-of-state level to nuclear security. Thanks to that spotlight, 12 countries have eliminated weapons-usable nuclear materials from within their borders since the summits began. Fourteen countries have shut down reactors using highly enriched uranium, or converted those reactors to use low-enriched uranium instead. This has eliminated 24 reactors that use highly enriched uranium. And across 27 countries, nearly 3,000 kilograms of highly enriched uranium and plutonium have been removed or disposed of.

The summits have also delivered increasingly multilateral outcomes. At the 2010 summit, discussions focused on a US-led agenda for civilian fissile materials and featured "house gifts" (that is, "voluntary pledges … made by single countries … to improve nuclear security"). At Seoul in 2012, discussions expanded to encompass a global agenda on nuclear safety and security implementation—and regional cooperation in nuclear security was enhanced through "gift baskets" (that is, pledges by multiple countries that "go beyond … summit communiqués"). At the Hague in 2014, 35 states committed to the Strengthening Nuclear Security Implementation Initiative. The initiative, which the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) later published as Information Circular 869, concerns these nations’ commitment to the agency's nuclear security recommendations. But despite these accomplishments, big challenges remain to be addressed at the final summit and beyond.

The first challenge is to achieve broader acceptance of, and compliance with, existing international nuclear security agreements. The Convention on Physical Protection of Nuclear Material, signed in 1980, is the only legally binding international agreement regarding physical protection of nuclear material. A 2005 amendment extends the convention's scope, especially where theft of nuclear materials or sabotage against nuclear facilities is concerned. But the amendment is not yet in full effect—only 94 states of the required 101 have ratified it. Meanwhile, the 2005 International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism, which facilitates prosecutions and extraditions related to nuclear terrorism, is already in force—but 77 of the 152 states that possess less than one kilogram of weapons-usable nuclear materials have failed to ratify it. The most recent initiative to which states might commit is IAEA Information Circular 869, mentioned above, which remains open for new signatories at the 2016 summit. Wider adoption of these instruments is a must for strengthening the legal foundation for a global nuclear security regime, establishing an institutional support mechanism for such a regime, and facilitating implementation.

A second challenge is that nuclear security initiatives are hobbled by a dearth of regional approaches to the problem. Both the Nuclear Security Summits and the parallel Nuclear Industry Summits have addressed nuclear security standards and methods of assessing compliance with those standards. But they haven't focused on the growing demand for nuclear energy in regions, such as the Middle East, that suffer from conflict and violent extremism. This is problematic because risk environments can best be assessed at the regional level. To be sure, responding to nuclear security breaches and prosecuting the smuggling of nuclear and other radioactive material requires following IAEA recommendations, but it also depends on national legal frameworks and criminal codes, as well as on cross-border cooperation. The summit process has involved only limited regional outreach to non-summit states and limited sharing of information with them. Regional mechanisms need to be established that can hold governments accountable for their nuclear security.

A third ongoing need is to include military nuclear material in the nuclear security discussion. Countries willing to eliminate their civilian nuclear material have already done so. This means that little further progress can be achieved unless military materials are addressed. These materials constitute 83 percent of the world's highly enriched uranium and plutonium—and they remain outside international oversight. Military materials, like civilian nuclear materials, can be vulnerable to theft (particularly during transport), sabotage (both physical and cyber), and inadvertent access. An initial approach to tackling this problem might be for states, in military-to-military exchanges, to share best practices and other non-sensitive information regarding the security of military nuclear materials.

Reduced incentives? The International Atomic Energy Agency plans to hold ministerial-level meetings on nuclear security every three years. But the post-summit era will see reduced involvement at the presidential level, and states may perceive reduced incentives for improving their nuclear security. Already Russia has chosen not to participate in the 2016 summit—Moscow argues that the IAEA should play the central role in nuclear security and that no meaningful political agenda for nuclear security remains to be discussed. Russia and the United States possess almost 90 percent of the world's nuclear materials, so a lack of US-Russia dialogue on nuclear security is cause for concern; unfortunately, trust between the two nations is damaged amid the Ukraine crisis and the Syria conflict.  In any event, unless a concrete plan emerges in Washington for continuing high-level international dialogue on nuclear security, the progress achieved through the summit process risks coming to a halt.

Some—the Russian government, for example—argue that the Nuclear Security Summits have exhausted their ability to mobilize the international com­munity to secure nuclear materials. This argument is incorrect and dangerous. Nuclear and radiological terrorism continues to pose a threat and will do so for the foreseeable future. And though the summits have made good progress toward achieving their agenda, much unfinished business remains.

Across my home continent of Africa, for example, security measures are inadequate. In a number of nations, including some where terrorists operate, governance is patchy and regulation weak. Meanwhile, Africa is a continent where more than 20 nations have announced interest in establishing nuclear energy programs. South Africa, the only nation on the continent with nuclear power today, plans to expand its capacity. So—in one dedicated format or another—the summit process should continue beyond 2016.

Much to be proud of. The most significant accomplishment of the summit process has been a worldwide reduction in the number of sites hosting materials that could be used to make nuclear bombs. This reduction is crucial because, if all reactors used for research and isotope production were fueled with low-enriched uranium instead of highly enriched uranium (HEU), and all fresh and spent HEU fuel were taken back by supplier countries, terrorists seeking to carry out an attack with a crude, gun-type nuclear bomb would face much greater obstacles.

Africa has made an important contribution to eliminating civilian HEU and consolidating spent fuel. In 2010, South Africa finished converting its SAFARI-1 reactor—which produces molybdenum-99, the world's most important medical radioiso­tope—to low-enriched uranium. It was the first reactor worldwide to complete conversion and begin producing molybdenum-99 on a large scale. Additionally, 6.3 kilograms of US-origin spent HEU fuel were removed in 2011 from a South African research facility.

Another significant achievement for the summit process has been the support provided, at the national, bilateral, and multilateral levels, for education and training initiatives to develop human resources and build capacity. The International Atomic Energy Agency, for example, reported that in 2012 it had "conducted over 80 training events covering all aspects of nuclear security, involving more than 2,000 people." The United States in 2015 enabled more than 40 nuclear experts from developing countries—including Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, and South Africa—to attend the annual meeting of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, where they learned about promoting a culture of nuclear security in their own countries. The training provided by programs such as these is vital to effective, sustainable nuclear security systems.

Finally, numerous states have joined nuclear terrorism conventions during the summit process. Ten African states, among many other nations, have ratified the 2005 amendment to the Convention on Physical Protection of Nuclear Material since the summits began. A number of African nations have also acceded to the International Convention on the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism. By joining these conventions, African states demonstrate a regional commitment to strengthening the global nuclear security regime.

Much left undone. Despite these notable successes, the summits have failed to realize several goals. One unmet goal is to phase out highly enriched uranium as a fuel for research reactors where technically and economically feasible. In Africa, seven countries host a total of eight operational research reactors. Two of these eight—one in Ghana, one in Nigeria—are powered with highly enriched uranium. Conversion is in process at both facilities. When these conversions are complete, Africa will have eliminated highly enriched uranium in civilian nuclear applications and the world will be a step closer to freedom from nuclear terror.

Another remaining challenge, particularly in some developing countries, is that complacency sometimes surrounds the threat of nuclear terrorism. A majority of developing countries do not prioritize nuclear terrorism in their national security agendas. They can dedicate only limited human and financial resources to nuclear security. Indeed, many political leaders in Africa believe the probability that nuclear terrorism will occur on their territory is zero. In the global nuclear security system, nations such as these are weak links that terrorists might exploit. The 2007 intrusion incident at South Africa’s Pelindaba nuclear research facility exemplifies how creeping complacency can sap security, even in advanced nuclear states with decades of experience. Complacency must be curtailed before the global nuclear security system can be considered adequate.

A last piece of unfinished business is simply that nuclear terrorism remains a threat—not a Hollywood concoction, but something dangerous and real. As argued in a 2014 report published by the Project on Managing the Atom, terrorists have "the motive, means, and opportunity [to commit] a monstrous crime." As long as the world is home to both terrorists intent on large-scale destruction and materials needed to make nuclear weapons, the threat of nuclear terrorism will persist.

No time to stop. With the summit process coming to a close, how can unfinished business be addressed? The most compelling approach may be to transfer the summit process to security institutions such as the International Atomic Energy Agency and Interpol. Each agency, depending on its capabilities and drawing on its existing staff and framework, might tackle a specific set of nuclear security issues. Such an approach has the potential to engage all UN member countries, including non-summit participants, in strengthening nuclear security.

Another way to continue the process is through the creation or expansion of certain initiatives for nuclear security training and standards. In nuclear security, people are a crucial element—so skill, knowledge, and ability must be developed wherever people involved in nuclear security actually work. One way to advance this goal would be, at the 2016 summit, to agree that the WINS Academy, a training and certification initiative of the World Institute for Nuclear Security, should be fully operationalized. In any event, when all nations have access to common training programs and best practices, and share a common nuclear security culture, countries and organizations will have the personnel and tools to identify and redress vulnerabilities in their nuclear security architectures.

Finally, the summit process could in some sense be continued if countries at the 2016 summit agreed on ways to promote, at the regional and international levels, comprehensive intelligence sharing. Political leaders across the developing world would thus become aware of the real dangers associated with terrorism and nuclear materials—and would be more likely to promote strong nuclear security measures in their nations.

A second death toll. No incident of nuclear terrorism has ever occurred. But securing vulnerable nuclear material is a must—not least because, in a globalized economy, an attack on any city would, in the words of former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, push "tens of millions of people into dire poverty," creating a "second death toll throughout the developing world." Given the severe threat that nuclear terrorism poses, continuing the summit process in appropriate, dedicated formats is an investment that could pay for itself many times over.