International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

About International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA):

• It is the world's foremost intergovernmental forum for scientific and technical cooperation in the nuclear field. 
• It is widely known as the world's "Atoms for Peace and Development"organizationwithin the United Nations family.
• It works for the safe, secure, and peaceful uses of nuclear science and technology.
• History: Though established as an autonomous organisation, independently of the United Nations through its own international treaty, the IAEA Statute, the IAEA reports to both the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council.
• Headquarters: Vienna, Austria.
• Currently, it has 178 member states.
• Structure:
  • The General Conference, consisting of all members, meets annually to approve the budget and programs and to debate the IAEA’s general policies.
  • The Board of Governors, which consists of 35 members who meet about five times per year, is charged with carrying out the agency’s statutory functions, approving safeguards agreements, and appointing the director general. 
  • The day-to-day affairs of the IAEA are run by the Secretariat, which is headed by the director general.
• Functions of IAEA:
  • The Agency works with its Member States and multiple partners worldwide to promote the safe, secure and peaceful use of nuclear technologies.
  • It applies nuclear safeguards – consisting of monitoring, inspection, information analysis, and other activities – to verify that nuclear activities remain peaceful and detect and deter their diversion, including to weapons-related purposes.
  • In particular, the IAEA implements comprehensive safeguards agreementsmandated by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which serve as a first line of defense against nuclear weapons proliferation. 
  • IAEA assists its Member States and promotes the exchange of scientific and technical information between them.
  • IAEA enhances national, regional, and international capacities to respond to nuclear and radiological incidents, which is essential to minimizing their impact. 

Q1: What is the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)?

The NPT is an international treaty whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to foster the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and to further the goal of disarmament. The Treaty represents the only binding commitment in a multilateral treaty to the goal of disarmament by the nuclear-weapon States.A total of 191 States have joined the Treaty, including the five nuclear-weapon States.South Sudan, India, Pakistan, and Israel have never joined the NPT. North Korea joined the NPT in 1985, but withdrew in 2003.

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