The Asia-Pacific Nuclear Governance Architecture Part II
APLN Policy Brief 41
The following is a summary. Click on the adjacent link to download the full brief.
This Policy Brief complements Policy Brief 40, which assessed the current outlook for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy in the region to approximately 2030. This part of the study considers the regionally-based arrangements for nuclear governance and the extent to which they usefully reinforce and dovetail with the global governance arrangements. All regions have special requirements in the nuclear governance realm given their different political and economic circumstances, their geographical configuration and strategic location. The trick is to devise regional arrangements that supplement but do not replicate the global system and which also are tailored to realistic regional needs and expectations, rather than designing governance for its own sake. It turns out that in the Asia-Pacific nuclear governance at the regional level does provide some reinforcement of the global system. But this is mostly in terms of norm-reinforcement, declarations of principles and objectives and modest institutional frameworks. Currently the regional supplements to the global system come nowhere near realizing their potential in practical ways, such as in actually strengthening nuclear safety and security on the ground. There are also questions, requiring further research to answer, about how deep into national nuclear enterprises the various governance norms, legal requirements, recommendations and advice penetrate.
About the Author
Trevor Findlay is a Senior Research Fellow in the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne, an Associate of the Project on Managing the Atom at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and chair of the United Nations Secretary-General’s Advisory Board for Disarmament Matters for 2017. He served for thirteen years in the Australian diplomatic service and is the author of several books and monographs, including Unleashing the Nuclear Watchdog: Strengthening and Reform of the IAEA (Centre for International Governance Innovation, Waterloo, 2011) and Nuclear Energy and Global Governance: Ensuring Safety, Security and Nonproliferation (Routledge, London, 2011).
Image: APLN/Unsplash stock, Matthieu Buhler.
