New Perspectives on Nuclear Verification

by Sanaa Alvira (Centre for Aerospace Power and Strategic Studies, India)

In June 2025, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors found Iran to be in non-compliance with its safeguards obligations for the first time in nearly two decades. This finding seemed to mark the beginning of a serious escalation in a long-simmering conflict regarding Iran’s nuclear programme and culminated in military airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities by Israel and the United States soon after. Iran responded with its own attacks: not just militarily on Israel and a US base in Qatar, but also politically on the IAEA itself, accusing the Director General of “partiality and passivity over Israeli attacks over the country” and the Agency’s “double standards.”

Setting aside the legal, safety, and other issues surrounding attacks on nuclear facilities, a lesser discussed question is this: What does a finding of non-compliance signify, and what actions should, and equally importantly, should not the relevant state take?

There is no agreed-upon definition of safeguards non-compliance. The term does not appear in the NPT or the safeguards agreements. Neither the General Conference nor the Board of Governors has sought to agree on a definition, presumably to give itself scope to handle uniquely complex cases. The 2022 Safeguards Glossary (which has no legal status) simply defines it as “a violation by a State of its obligations under its safeguards agreement with the IAEA”. While this lacuna gives the board flexibility to deal with unique cases, it also poses problems due to the lack of clarity, leading to misrepresentation of what a finding of non-compliance signifies. As there is no agreed-upon definition, and each case is assessed on its own factors, a finding of non-compliance could incorrectly be perceived as definitive proof of a clandestine nuclear weapons programme.

The objective of safeguards is “the timely detection of diversion of significant quantities of nuclear material from peaceful nuclear activities to the manufacture of nuclear weapons or of other nuclear explosive devices or for purposes unknown…” (emphasis added). The IAEA does not have to prove that a state has a secret nuclear weapons programme, but simply seek indications that nuclear material may have been diverted, or that there may be more to the situation than anticipated. Therefore, a finding of non-compliance does not confirm the existence of a clandestine nuclear weapons programme. This is important to emphasise, especially given reports that Israel’s strikes were timed in response to the IAEA’s non-compliance resolution, carried out just a day later, and used as a casus belli.

However, a finding of non-compliance is nonetheless still a serious indication that a state has failed to fulfil its obligations under the safeguards system. In such cases, the onus is on the state in question to restore international confidence by “taking fully corrective action within in a reasonable time”. The appropriate response from the state should not be to accuse or discredit the IAEA, but to engage transparently and resolve the issues that gave rise to the finding. Accusations by Iran only heightens suspicion and undermines the very mechanisms designed to resolve such (reasonable) concerns.

The lack of detail in the safeguards documents and other guidance on non-compliance has led to “significant legal, procedural, substantive, and semantic conundrums for the Agency and its member states over the years”. This ambiguity has made the role of the Secretariat especially delicate. Its role is technical: to assess whether a state is fulfilling its obligations under its safeguards agreements. When a state obstructs inspections, withholds information, or simply does not cooperate, the Secretariat may report these technical assessments to the Director General. The Director General then presents this report to the Board of Governors, the policy-making body of the IAEA. It is then the responsibility of the Board to determine non-compliance, a process which can be political in nature.

It is therefore important to distinguish between the technical, impartial and objective work of the Secretariat, and the political processes of the Board of Governors. Misrepresenting the two, either intentionally, implicitly or otherwise, as evidenced by Iran’s accusations against the IAEA and its Director General, jeopardises the credibility of the safeguards system. While one could certainly question the wisdom and legality of the attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities, using them as a smokescreen to deflect from addressing its long-standing safeguards issues and instead undermining the technical integrity of the IAEA sets a dangerous precedent: It affects the credibility of the Agency as an independent and objective verifier, Iran’s ability to regain trust and engage diplomatically, and also weakens the broader non-proliferation regime at a time when trust in multilateral institutions is already under strain.

Sanaa Alvira is Research Associate working on nuclear issues at the Centre for Aerospace Power and Strategic Studies in India. She previously worked as a Marie Curie Fellow in the Department of Safeguards at the International Atomic Energy Agency.