Study of transparency in the field of nuclear nonproliferation conducted at JAEA

Kawakubo, Yoko; Sekine, Megumi ; Tomikawa, Hirofumi

Nuclear transparency is recognized as essential to provide additional assurance and enhance confidence building in the Asia-Pacific as this region has a broad spectrum of nuclear development underway and planned in the future. It is expected that elevated nuclear transparency should also supplement and reinforce International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards. With this recognition, Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) has committed various studies and activities for enhancing regional transparency mainly with U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and its national laboratories. The efforts include transparency concept study, development of the remote monitoring system at the Experimental Fast Reactor JOYO, cooperation to Council for Security and Cooperation in Asia Pacific (CSCAP) to develop internet-based transparency tools, establishment of Information Sharing Framework (ISF), and the hosting of a series of workshops. Based on all the achievements of the past efforts, JAEA is now moving from "study phase" toward the "implementation phase" of information sharing for enhancing its nuclear transparency. The ISF website was opened in 2015 as a part of Asia Pacific Safeguards Network (APSN) website for JAEA to provide relevant information to APSN members. This report summarizes the past studies and activities performed in JAEA for almost 20 years to enhance regional nuclear transparency and discusses the future prospect.