How low can Australia's uranium export policy go?
Jim Green
Australia's choice of uranium customer countries has gone from bad to worse with the decision at Labor's national conference in December to ditch its policy of banning uranium sales to India.
We have uranium export agreements with all of the 'declared' nuclear weapons states (the US, UK, China, France, Russia) although none of them are serious about their obligation under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to pursue disarmament in good faith. That weakness, among others, is now being used to justify disregarding the NPT altogether.
We claim to have championed the adoption of 'Additional Protocols' – agreements which provide the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) with somewhat greater powers to uncover covert weapons programs. But we waited until all of our customer countries had an Additional Protocol in place before making it a condition of uranium sales. That's not using uranium exports to leverage improvements in the safeguards regime − it's low-brow, opportunistic, retrospective PR.
We claim to be working to discourage countries from producing fissile (explosive) material for nuclear bombs, yet we export uranium to countries blocking progress on the proposed Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty. And we give Japan open-ended permission to separate and stockpile plutonium although that stockpiling has fanned regional proliferation risks and tensions in North-East Asia for many years.
In theory, Australia has a 'strict' policy of requiring Australian consent to separate and stockpile plutonium produced from Australian uranium; in practice, we have failed when put to the test and permission to separate plutonium has never once been refused.
We sell uranium to countres with a recent history of weapons-related research. In 2004, South Korea disclosed information about a range of weapons-related R&D over the preceding 20 years. Australia has supplied South Korea with uranium since 1986. We don't know whether Australian uranium or its by-products were used in any of the illicit research in South Korea. The Howard government and its safeguards office showed no interest in finding out the answer to that question.
The 2006 approval to sell uranium to China set another new low: uranium sales to an undemocratic, secretive state with an appalling human rights record (such as jailing nuclear whistle-blowers). That precedent was reinforced with the subsequent approval of uranium sales to Russia (another undemocratic nuclear weapons state, though Russia prefers to deal with dissidents by poisoning them with radioactive polonium).
The Russian agreement set some new lows of its own: uranium sales to a country which is very rarely visited by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards inspectors – just two inspections over the past decade. Federal parliament's treaties committee recommended against uranium sales to Russia until some sort of safeguards system was put in place, only to have its recommendation ignored by the Rudd government.
Another new low with the Russian agreement: we granted permission for Russia to process Australian uranium at a nuclear plant that is entirely beyond the scope of IAEA inspections – the IAEA has no authority to inspect the plant even if it had the resources and the inclination to do so.
The decision at Labor's national conference in December to allow uranium sales to India sets a new low – uranium sales to a country which is outside the NPT altogether and is not subject to the requirement of the 'declared' weapons states to pursue nuclear disarmament in good faith.
And another low: India would be the only one of Australia's uranium customers which is definitely continuing to produce fissile material for weapons (China may also be doing so).
We take pride in Australia's 'leadership' role in the development of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (or at least Alexander Downer does). Yet we sell uranium to countries that have signed but not ratified the CTBT (the US and China) and the government now plans to sell uranium to India, which has neither signed nor ratified the CTBT. Another new low. The CTBT remains in limbo because those three countries, and a few others, refuse to sign and ratify it.
And another low: if uranium sales to India proceed, it will be the first time since the Cold War that we have sold uranium to a country which is engaged in a nuclear arms race. India and Pakistan are expanding their nuclear weapons arsenals at an alarming rate; both continue to develop nuclear-capable missiles; both are expanding their capacity to produce fissile material; both refuse to sign or ratify the CTBT.
And the India decision marks a low-point in Australia's international diplomacy. To permit uranium sales with no commitment by India to curb its weapons program, and no commitment to de-escalate the South Asian nuclear arms race, is spineless, irresponsible, dangerous sycophancy.
How low can we go? Plans are in train to sell uranium to the United Arab Emirates, probably followed by other countries in the Middle East. We were planning uranium sales to the Shah of Iran months before his overthrow in 1979. The Middle East has been (and remains) a nuclear hot-spot with numerous covert nuclear weapons programs – successful, aborted, destroyed or ongoing. The Middle East has also seen numerous conventional military strikes and attempted strikes on nuclear plants – in Iraq (several times), Iran, Israel and most recently Syria.
In theory it would be possible to leverage worthwhile non-proliferation and disarmament outcomes though uranium export policy; in practice, and in Australia, it works the other way around.
Short of selling uranium deliberately and specifically for weapons production – as we did after World War II – I don't think its possible for Australian uranium export policy to sink any lower.
How much longer until the contradictions and the hypocrisy overwhelm the spin? The government got a fright when the treaties committee refused to rubber-stamp the Russia uranium agreement. Perhaps the treaties committee will recommend against uranium sales to India unless accompanied by meaningful commitments from India to curb its weapons program, and meaningful safeguards. Perhaps its recommendations won't be so easily ignored next time. Perhaps.
Jim Green is the national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth and author of a briefing paper on uranium sales to India. www.choosenuclearfree.net/india