Rebuilding Trust in Nuclear Governance: The Politics of Verification in the Global Security Order
Author(s): Jolaebi O Omotoso
Abstract: Reestablishing confidence in nuclear governance has emerged as the critical test within the emerging global security architecture.” The international nuclear order based on institutions such as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and buttressed by several multilateral treaties, was initially established to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons, while facilitating the development of peaceful applications. Yet, since then, political instability, state sanitized verification and the arrival on the threshold of new nuclear weapons states has eroded our confidence in such mechanisms. Verification techniques of the past depended on transparency, technical monitoring, and diplomatic openness. But verification in the post-modern era of inspections is increasingly caught up with strategic mistrust, national identity politics and domestic political pressures – so that an arena once dominated by classic technical issues becomes highly charged politically. At the more general level, states vary to a large degree concerning what they find as fair or intrusive and in concerns about sovereignty when being subject to verification regimes. Most evidently, these tensions are felt in the case of Iran, North Korea and non-NPT nuclear-armed states whose black box approach may only have grown with the secretive illicit practices of four other states. With verification as a symbolic field of trust, where trust is negotiated, the issue is no longer so much developing technical measures satellite surveillance, environmental sampling, digital monitoring but rather responding to diplomatic and political conditions surrounding the willingness of states to cooperate. Thus, rebuilding trust will require a strengthened multilateral dialogue, greater attention to modernizing treaties, and more transparency from the nuclear powers and confidence-building measures that account for national security needs while serving global safety interests. In the end, sustaining nuclear governance will mean adapting verification practices to changing geopolitical contexts while recommitting to a common commitment shared by all members of the international community to prevent nuclear escalation.
DOI: 10.33545/26646021.2022.v4.i2b.754Pages: 171-179 | Views: 36 | Downloads: 1Download Full Article: Click Here
How to cite this article:
Jolaebi O Omotoso.
Rebuilding Trust in Nuclear Governance: The Politics of Verification in the Global Security Order. Int J Political Sci Governance 2022;4(2):171-179. DOI:
10.33545/26646021.2022.v4.i2b.754
