Part of effort to cut global stockpiles of nuclear materials
By: David Campbell
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has awarded $2.2 million to the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University for the creation of an international panel to support reductions in global stockpiles of fissile materials, the school has announced.
The grant was awarded to the Woodrow Wilson School’s Program on Science and Global Security for the creation of the International Panel on Fissile Materials. The panel will seek to strengthen the analytical basis for policies aimed at reductions in stockpiles and the number of locations where such materials can be found.
The $2.2 million grant will be disbursed over five years starting early next year, said Professor Harold Feiveson, co-director of the Program on Science and Global Security.
The panel, made up of international nuclear experts, is expected to issue its first report in March 2006 on the fissile material agenda.
The report will review progress in reducing quantities of fissile materials worldwide and their vulnerability to misuse or theft.
Fissile materials, notably highly enriched uranium and plutonium, are the key ingredients required to make nuclear weapons.
"The threat that fissile material could fall into the hands of a terrorist organization is real, but not enough is being done to secure it, putting us all at risk," MacArthur Foundation President Jonathan Fanton said. "The first step to neutralizing that danger is to track how, where, and under what conditions these materials are stored, and to understand that they can be protected."
The panel will meet twice a year in rotating capitals. It will be co-chaired by two nuclear physicists: Professor Frank von Hippel, co-director of the Program on Science and Global Security, and Professor Josi Goldemberg of the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Its founding members will include experts from the U.S., China, Russia, the United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, Brazil, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Norway, South Africa, South Korea and Sweden.
The panel is expected to expand to up to 20 members.
"There is an urgent need to find more effective ways to prevent nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism," Professor von Hippel said. "The simplest and most direct route is through control and drastic reductions of stockpiles of fissile materials and their elimination wherever possible."