Context: The U.N. nuclear watchdog’s Board of Governors will hold an emergency meeting to discuss attacks on the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.
About International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA):
- It was created in 1957 in response to the deep fears and expectations generated by the discoveries and diverse uses of nuclear technology.
- The Agency was set up as the world’s “Atoms for Peace” organization within the United Nations family.
- It is the world’s central intergovernmental forum for scientific and technical cooperation in the nuclear field.
- It works for the safe, secure and peaceful uses of nuclear science and technology, contributing to international peace and security and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
- Though established independently of the United Nations through its international treaty, the IAEA Statute, the IAEA reports to both the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council.
- India is a founding member of the IAEA.
- Signature and ratification of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) are not preconditions for membership in the IAEA.
- North Korea is not a member.
- IAEA has 178 members.
- Headquarters: Vienna, Austria.
Additional Protocol
- Additional Protocol is not a stand-alone agreement.
- Each of the safeguard agreements may be complemented with an Additional Protocol that includes provisions for information about, and access to, all parts of a State's nuclear fuel cycle, from mines to nuclear waste.
- It significantly increases the IAEA’s ability to verify the peaceful use of all nuclear material in States with comprehensive safeguards agreements.
- As a non-signatory to the NPT, India lacks comprehensive safeguards that NNWS signatories to NPT have. India’s Additional Protocol stipulates that only certain facilities are placed under safeguards.
- India’s Additional Protocol applies many of the voluntary safeguards provisions that exist for nuclear weapon states, although India is not recognized by the IAEA as a nuclear weapon state.