Nuclear Governance in the Asia-Pacific

Mely Caballero-Anthony, Julius Cesar I. Trajano, Mely Caballero-Anthony, Julius Cesar I. Trajano

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781032130675
• eBook ISBN: 9781000603316
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: National Security
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The contributors to this book explore approaches to building a framework for nuclear governance in the Asia-Pacific – encompassing nuclear safety, security, and safeguards/non-proliferation.

Nuclear governance collaboration offers an avenue for states in the Asia-Pacific to tackle the emerging opportunities for and challenges to the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and the civilian applications of nuclear and radioactive materials. The nature of national actions, bilateral initiatives and regional cooperation in capacity building taking place in East Asia provides a good foundation to pursue a more robust collaborative framework for nuclear governance in the wider Asia-Pacific region. The contributors to this book explore the most critical nuclear safety, security and non-proliferation issues faced by states in the Asia-Pacific and the growing cooperation spearheaded by Southeast Asian countries, China, Japan, South Korea and the United States.

This book is a valuable read for academics working on security and strategic studies, international relations, non-traditional security issues as well as nuclear-related issues.

1 Introduction Nuclear governance in the Asia-Pacific

Mely Caballero-Anthony and Julius Cesar Trajano

DOI: 10.4324/9781003227489-1

The Asia-Pacific is not only vast but also a highly strategic region. Its geographic footprint includes the world’s major powers (the United States and China) as well as medium and small states like Japan, South Korea and Thailand. While the United States and China are deemed nuclear-weapon states, most of the rest of the region are not; North Korea, India and Pakistan possess nuclear weapons but have not been officially recognised as nuclear-weapon states. The diversity of the states comprising the Asia-Pacific makes it challenging to study the state of nuclear governance in the region.

With interest in nuclear technology on the rise in the Asia-Pacific, this is an opportune time to examine how states and societies in the region approach and manage nuclear issues. Notwithstanding the region’s diversity, the aim of this book is to provide a snapshot of the nature of nuclear governance in the region given the shared interest among states and societies in the range of nuclear issues that bear on international peace and security. The renewed interest in nuclear energy (as a viable response to balancing the need to address climate change while also ensuring energy security to fuel economic development) is stacked against concerns over the malicious use of nuclear technology. Given such concerns, it is of great interest to examine how nuclear issues are dealt with by different states regardless of their size and material power. Of particular note are differences in policies for managing nuclear issues and in the kinds of institutions established to mitigate nuclear challenges and promote regional and international cooperation.

The concept of nuclear governance is very broad. In the literature, nuclear governance is most often associated with the key three areas pertaining to the use of nuclear technology, namely, nuclear safety, security and safeguards.¹ Collectively, they are frequently abbreviated as the ‘nuclear 3S’ and encompass nuclear energy generation (nuclear reactors, nuclear power plants and related facilities); peaceful uses of nuclear technology (in medicine, agriculture, industrial use, scientific research, climate change adaptation measures, environmental protection, among others); and non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. While the boundaries between the 3S tend to overlap, there are established definitions developed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the global body promoting cooperation in the nuclear field to guide policy and academic communities in their understanding of nuclear issues.

The 3S of nuclear governance: nuclear safety, security and safeguards

According to the IAEA, nuclear safety relates to the protection of people and the environment against radiation risks and the safety of facilities and activities that give rise to radiation risks. It encompasses the safety of nuclear installations such as nuclear power plants, radiation safety, safety in radioactive waste management and safety in the transport of radioactive material. Such radiation risks may occur under normal circumstances or as a consequence of (nuclear) incidents.²

At the core of the nuclear safety regime is the 1994 Convention on Nuclear Safety (CNS) which requires state parties to regularly examine their nuclear safety practices and undergo international peer review of those practices. Other equally important global treaties are the 1986 Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident (CENNA); the 1986 Convention on Assistance in the Case of a Nuclear Accident or Radiological Incident (CACNARE); and the 1997 Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management (‘Joint Convention’). Overall, the nuclear safety regime is aimed at preventing nuclear accidents and institutionalising effective nuclear emergency preparedness and response.

Nuclear security is defined by the IAEA as the “prevention and detection of, and response to, theft, sabotage, unauthorized access, illegal transfer or other malicious acts involving nuclear material, other radioactive material or their associated facilities”.³ While nuclear safety addresses the broader issue of harmful effects to people and the environment, nuclear security deals with malicious and international acts involving nuclear and radioactive materials that could cause or pose harm to people. Nuclear security is primarily aimed at preventing nuclear terrorism and other criminal acts using nuclear and radiological materials and facilities.⁴ The nuclear security regime’s key international conventions are the 1980 Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material and its 2005 Amendment (CPPNM and its Amendment), which entered into force in 2016, and the 2005 International Convention for the Suppression of Actions of Nuclear Terrorism (ICSANT).

Meanwhile, nuclear safeguards refer to a set of technical measures that are applied by the IAEA on nuclear facilities and material. These measures allow the IAEA to independently countercheck the implementation of a state’s legal obligation that its nuclear facilities are not misused and nuclear material is not diverted from peaceful uses to manufacturing of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). States institutionalise these measures by ratifying comprehensive safeguard agreements.⁵ The measures help deter the proliferation of nuclear weapons by the prompt detection of any diversion and illicit use of nuclear material or technology. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons is the centrepiece of the international legal regime aimed at thwarting the further spread of nuclear weapons.⁶

However, while the IAEA has clearly defined what each of the 3S covers, there is less information on how these areas are governed. Questions such as the processes involved, how nuclear policies are decided (by whom, why and when) and the kinds of institutions involved are less understood. To better appreciate the nature of nuclear governance in the region, it is useful as the outset to revisit the overarching concept of governance.

Broadly, we can look at governance as a set of processes, involving actors both formal and informal, and institutions to manage and address issues and problems. Formal actors include states; intergovernmental bodies like the United Nations and its relevant agencies (e.g., IAEA, United Nations Environment Programme); and regional organisations like the European Union, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF). Informal actors include civil society organisations and non-governmental bodies. The whole gamut of ‘governance’, unlike ‘government’, also emphasises the importance of rules, regimes and other institutions designed to mediate differences and set the nature of relations between and among states. When applied to the nuclear field, Findlay in this book refers to nuclear governance as a web of “norms, treaties, agreements and arrangements, organisations (formal and informal), networks, mechanisms, programmes and documents such as standards and guidelines”. Given the density of these norms, arrangements and processes, nuclear governance is viewed as taking place at multiple levels from the national to the sub-regional, regional and international.

Nuclear governance in a changing security landscape

Much has changed in the international system with the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s. The pervasive impact of globalisation had also rapidly altered the international security environment. With growing connectivity brought on by globalisation and rapid advances in technology, the patterns of interactions among different actors at multiple levels have also changed. It is of note that the state, although still the dominant actor in the international system, is no longer the only actor making decisions on issues that affect peace and security. Along with other emerging security challenges, like climate change, pandemics, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence that have consequential impacts on the ability and capacity of states to manage and resolve extant problems, pressures on governance potentially undermine stability and state legitimacy. These conditions provide pathways for other actors, including non-state actors and civil society organisations, to get involved in the business of governance. The multiplicity of actors engaged in the multiple processes of problem-solving extends the notion of governance beyond what governments do and expands the governance arena beyond state borders.

Writing on global governance, Weiss describes governance as a “heuristic device to capture and describe the confusing and seemingly ever-accelerating transformation of the international system”.⁷ Rosenau describes global governance as including “systems of rule at all levels of human activity from the family to the international organization in which the pursuit of goals through the exercise of control has transnational repercussions”.⁸ These activities involve a variety of actors who play a role in global governance. Their roles include creating issues, setting agendas, establishing and implementing rules or programmes and evaluating and/or adjudicating outcomes.⁹ When these notions of global governance are applied to nuclear issues, nuclear (global) governance should in turn be seen as a multi-layered set of collective actions and/or an array of disparate efforts undertaken by different actors, apart from the state, with the purpose of crafting responses to address and manage a range of nuclear-related issues. Thus, nuclear governance is the sum of processes from the national level to the multilateral level that are built on the participation and contribution of various actors, mechanisms, rules, arrangements and structures.

Thus, as we proceed to examine the state of nuclear governance in a state or region, we should be mindful that embedded in all three areas of nuclear safety, security and safeguards are complex governance processes involving states, individuals, groups, institutions, rules and regimes. To better understand how these nuclear-issue areas are governed, we examine, for example, what kinds of issues are raised in particular issue areas and by whom. The inquiry also extends to how these issues are addressed, what rules apply and how institutions mitigate differences and problems. We also need to look at how outcomes are evaluated or adjudicated. In brief, nuclear governance could be seen as a dynamic set of processes taking place within and among states, and at multiple levels, involving a range of actors carrying out functions that involve devising policies to manage nuclear-related issues.

There are of course variations in the nature of the nuclear governance depending on the context and regional characteristics. These country-specific experiences and region-specific contexts are considerations that this edited book speaks to. The authors of the case studies on the United States, China, Japan, South Korea and Thailand present different narratives of the state of nuclear governance in their respective settings. These case studies offer insights on the issues and challenges involved in policymaking and implementation of regulations, on nuclear safety, security and safeguards to ensure national security and advance national, regional and international legal and normative frameworks.

The chapters in this book also present the varying policy preferences of states in the region, reflecting the dominant security concerns that inform their nuclear policies. It is insightful, for instance, to see how a major nuclear-weapon state like China approaches the need to balance the pressures of meeting its huge energy needs and maintaining its status as a nuclear-weapon state while promoting closer cooperation with neighbouring states through participation in regional institutions like the ARF. This is unlike the United States, which favours bilateral approaches instead of multilateral pathways. From the country studies, it is also interesting to observe the stark contrast in policy emphases between states in Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia. The focus of the former is nuclear safety while the latter states tend to be more concerned with nuclear security and nuclear non-proliferation, which underscores the salience of context in understanding the nature of governance in this diverse region.

The two regional chapters in this book (Chapters 2 and 8) complement the country studies by providing overviews of the institutional landscape for nuclear governance. They assess the existing regional nuclear regulatory frameworks within and outside the ASEAN region. This includes efforts to ensure comprehensive safety management, better risk communication, and transparency and accountability in nuclear power development. In their analyses of the efficacy of regional frameworks, these chapters also offer insights on regionalism in the Asia-Pacific and the extent to which ASEAN and ASEAN-led institutions like the ARF matter in promoting nuclear governance.

The chapters also discuss the contributions of non-state actors who are members of epistemic communities and communities of practice in the nuclear field. An epistemic community, according to Haas, is a “network of professionals with an authoritative claim to policy relevant knowledge within that domain or issue area”.¹⁰ By their very nature, epistemic communities provide essential elements in the decision-making processes of governments. Their ability to provide information, enhanced by their capability to create and strengthen their transnational networks, means that they can provide valuable inputs to decision-makers.

Knowledge networks are platforms and nexuses that are made up of experts and professionals who wish to communicate and collaborate towards the common goal of making decisions and disseminating information that influences policymakers and increases scholarship on issues of importance. Stone wields her understanding of knowledge to interpret knowledge networks: “[i]f knowledge is an organised body of information then knowledge network is one mode of organising information”.¹¹ Expounding further on the term, Keck and Sikkink hold that

these networks are similar in several important respects: the centrality of values or principled ideas, the belief that individuals can make a difference, the creative use of information, and the employment of nongovernmental actors of sophisticated political strategies in targeting their campaigns.¹²

Meanwhile, epistemic communities are dedicated to “expert knowledge and are ‘scientific’ in composition, founded on ‘codified’ forms of knowledge”.¹³ They are formed by scholars, teachers, scientists and researchers who wish to develop the field, independent of its effect on policymaking. However, they often do end up influencing the policy process, especially in times of conflict and crisis when policymakers need to make well-informed decisions. Stone lays out guidelines that define epistemic communities. They have

1. Shared normative and principled beliefs which provide the value-based rationales for their action,
2. Shared causal beliefs or professional judgements,
3. Common notions of validity based on inter-subjective, internally defined criteria for validating knowledge and
4. A common policy enterprise.¹⁴

Against an increasingly complex and uncertain international environment, experts provide governments with crucial policy inputs on issues affecting nuclear governance. In the Asia-Pacific, regional networks can facilitate sustainable cooperation on nuclear governance; pooling and sharing of information, knowledge and practical experience in the nuclear field; and development of regional capacity-build...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Tables
• List of Contributors
• Preface
• 1 Introduction Nuclear governance in the Asia-Pacific
• 2 Asia-Pacific regional nuclear governance Fragmented, patchy, yet fixable?
• 3 The missing piece? The US approach to nuclear governance in Asia
• 4 Nuclear governance in China National efforts and regional contributions
• 5 Japan’s contributions to nuclear security and non-proliferation
• 6 Nuclear governance in South Korea National actions and regional contributions
• 7 Role of nuclear education in nuclear governance Perspective from Thailand
• 8 Nuclear governance in Southeast Asia Practices, challenges and future pathways
• Index