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International Control of Tritium to Prevent Horizontal Proliferation and to Foster Nuclear Disarmament

Auteur	Martin Kalinowski, Lars C. Colschen
	6-03-0-50-106.pdf
Datum	januari 1995
Classificatie	6.03.0.50/106 (PROLIFERATIE - VERRIJKING/OPWERKING/KWEEKreactoren)
Voorkant

International Control of Tritium to Prevent Horizontal Proliferation 
and to Foster Nuclear Disarmament
Martin B. Kalinowski and Lars C. Colschen
Science & Global Security. 1995. Volume 5. pp.131-203 @1995 OPA

In this paper, an approach to control tritium systematically on the international 
level is proposed. The first goal is to prevent the military use of tritium in 
states other than the five recognized nuclear weapons states. An "International 
Tritium Control System" (lTCS) would control all civilian facilities producing or 
handling tritium. The second goal is to restrict the availability of fresh tritium 
supplies for nuclear weapons programs as a means to avoid vertical proliferation 
in states that possess nuclear weapons, and as a step towards complete nuclear 
disarmament. This can be achieved by including tritium in a future weapons-usable 
materials production cutoff agreement and the approach proposed here is called an 
"Integrated Cutoff' (lCO). The simultaneous implementation of the ITCS and ICO 
aims at avoiding any new discrimination against non-nuclear weapon states.

This paper will discuss the possible political and technical modalities to achieve 
both goals. The rules and decision making procedures are outlined for both control 
approaches and the implications for the nuclear non-proliferation regime are 
shown. 
Various control tasks are derived from a comprehensive analysis covering all 
diversion paths which can yield more than one gram of tritium within one year.
In the appendix to this paper, the impact of a tritium shortage on the U.S. nuclear 
arsenal is illuminated. The extreme case of complete elimination of all tritium 
would result in large yield reductions of the arsenal.