Governing uranium globally: New demands for security
Over the decades, the uranium market has evolved to include a wider range of suppliers and consumers, shifting centers of production and consumption to states with and without nuclear regulation in place. At the same time the international treaty system has evolved to include an increasing number of nuclear security and safeguards obligations now applicable to uranium ore concentrates (UOC). As a whole, suppliers and consumers in today’s global nuclear uranium are required to maneouvre in a far more complicated regulatory landscape, placing more obligations on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), state regulatory authorities and industry.
Even though the uranium market is global, export controls and nuclear security are local (that is, national). As the civilian nuclear fuel cycle expands geographically and treaty requirements expand in scope, there is a greater need for harmonisation of regulations across states, particularly for transport security, physical protection and tracking of materials.
This policy brief provides a series of recommendations based on three levels of governance: the international (i.e. the International Atomic Energy Agency), national (state regulators) and industry (facility operators).
The Governing Uranium project is a global research effort studying how a changing global market is impacting the governance of uranium production and trade. Led by the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), up to twenty-five researchers from ten partner and supporting institutes participated in the project. In total, 15 uranium producing and consuming countries were studied, representing 85 percent of global uranium production and 70 percent of consumption.
