What is verification?

Verification is a mechanism or procedure that seeks to determine whether a party is abiding by or fulfilling its obligations under a given agreement, and to detect those who violate their obligations. The essential basis of verification is a formal commitment by parties to engage, or not to engage, in certain activities.

Verification has traditionally been associated with international security-related agreements. In the context of non-proliferation, arms control and disarmament, verification refers to:

• Declarations of materials, equipment, and facilities associated with prohibited activities as well as those which could be used in conducting the prohibited activity, but which are not necessarily prohibited in and of themselves (so-called "dual-use" items).
• On-site inspections, usually by international inspectors. For example, the International Atomic Energy Agency conducts inspections of nuclear facilities of non-nuclear weapons states to determine compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
• Monitoring of items, areas, or activities. For instance, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization provides for seismic and radiological monitoring to help detect earth movement and air emissions from nuclear explosions (see map of nuclear test ban treaty global monitoring system). Satellite imagery is another important type of monitoring.
• Evaluation of the information generated by the above activities, in order to make a judgement whether there is credible evidence indicating that the inspected party is or is not in compliance with the given agreement.

Verification is often carried out using a combination of some or all of these mechanisms, referred to as a verification regime. Verification regimes of some non-proliferation treaties are described in the table below.

It should be noted that uncertainty is inherent in verification. No practical set of verification measures can provide absolute assurance that a given party is or is not violating a given agreement. What verification can do is provide a degree of confidence that prohibited activities are not being conducted. The value of verification agreements is that confidence about the status of activities is generally far greater when a verification regime has been agreed to and is functioning than when it is not.

Enforcement is the exertion of pressure via the threat and application of penalties or loss of benefits to ensure that parties to an agreement are complying with it. Official enforcement is generally carried out by administrative, judicial or political bodies (such as the Nuremberg Court set up by the Allies after World War II), the United Nations Security Council, or the War Crimes Tribunal now operating in The Hague in regard to the former Yugoslavia. Official enforcement mechanisms have included export controls, sanctions, embargoes, military action, and, as was the case at Nuremberg, imprisonment and the death penalty.

Some international agreements include specific enforcement provisions and some do not. A generally de facto enforcement mechanism, usually independent of any given agreement, is the UN Security Council and resulting action under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. Action under this clause requires that no permanent member of the Security Council should veto the given proposal for action. The five permanent members who hold veto power happen to be the five nuclear weapons states officially acknowledged as such under the NPT - that is, the United States, Russia, China, Britain, and France.

One can also conceive of popular pressure on governments to live up to their commitments. Examples include watchdogging government agencies and lobbying their representatives by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and individuals. Other means of popular enforcement have included:

• Civil disobedience and direct action. Actions led by Martin Luther King, Jr. during the US Civil Rights movement were a factor in compelling the US government to obey the 14^th amendment of the US Constitution guaranteeing equal protection under the law.
• Citizens' Inspections. Inspections of military and nuclear weapons facilities by individuals to enforce international law, such as the Nuremberg laws and Article VI of the NPT, have been undertaken in Belgium, France, Germany, Israel, and the United States.
• Action in the legal sphere, such as attempts to hold governments accountable under the law. Examples include the process that led up to the World Court consideration of the legality of nuclear weapons and the application of national laws which give legal standing to individuals, enabling them to force governments to comply with environmental laws.
• Economic boycotts. The worldwide public boycott of French products after France tested nuclear weapons in 1995 played a role in that country's decision to stop testing and close its test site in the South Pacific.

Because corporations often exert tremendous influence over governments, shareholder action can also be an effective form of popular pressure. For instance, investors in stock of the US-based nuclear utility, Duke Power, have again introduced a shareholder resolution that opposes the company's involvement in the mixed-oxide (MOX) plutonium fuel program (for more information about MOX, see SDA vol. 5 no. 4 and Energy and Security nos. 1, 2, and 3). Last year, the resolution gathered enough support from Duke shareholders to re-appear on the ballot to be voted on at the company's shareholder meeting in April 2000.

There are other examples of attempts at enforcement by NGOs and governments working separately and together. One is the "Middle Powers Initiative," a coordinated campaign by a network of international NGOs, including the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and others, to urge the leaders of middle-power states to press the nuclear weapons states to comply with international law, specifically Article VI of the NPT under which they are obligated to eliminate their nuclear arsenals.

There is also the New Agenda Coalition, seven countries (Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa and Sweden) that have called on the NPT nuclear weapons states and the three others, (India, Israel and Pakistan) to agree to start work immediately on negotiating nuclear disarmament. While it may seem odd that governments would go outside of the framework of the NPT and the UN Security Council to try to secure compliance, nuclear weapons states themselves set the precedent for this. For instance, the Nuclear Suppliers Group, which restricts commercial nuclear exports, among other things, to non-nuclear weapons states parties to the NPT, is outside of the NPT framework. As another example, the bombing of Iraq by the United States and Britain since December 1998 is without specific authorization by the UN Security Council. As a final example, the US-North Korean-South Korean-Chinese agreement to provide North Korea with nuclear reactors, oil and other goods in return for a verified halt to nuclear weapons activities is also outside of the framework of the NPT and the UN Security Council.

Sources: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute; Verifying Nonproliferation Treaties: Obligation, Process, and Sovereignty, J. Christian Kessler (National Defense University Press: Washington, DC); US Congressional Research Service Issue Brief 94029: Chemical Weapons Convention: Issues for Congress, Stephen R. Bowman, updated January 6, 1997 (viewed November 30, 1999, at the website of Federation of American Scientists, http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/crs/94-029.htm); website of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, http://www.opcw.nl/guide.htm, viewed December 22, 1999; IAEA fact sheet: International Safeguards and the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy, http://www.iaea.org/worldatom/inforesource/factsheets/safeguards.html, viewed December 22, 1999; US State Department Bureau of Arms Control, Fact Sheets on START, NPT and CTBT, http://www.state.gov/www/global/arms/factsheets/wmd/nuclear/start1/strtveri.html, http://www.state.gov/www/global/arms/factsheets/wmd/nuclear/start1/achieve.html, http://www.state.gov/www/global/arms/factsheets/wmd/nuclear/npt/uscommit.html, http://www.state.gov/www/global/arms/factsheets/wmd/nuclear/ctbt/ctbtsigs.html, and http://www.state.gov/www/global/arms/treaties/npt3.html, viewed December 22, 1999 and January 8, 2000; Verification Mechanisms in International Environmental Agreements, Vertic briefing paper 99/2, by Clare Tenner, September 1999, http://www.fhit.org/vertic/briefing/no2.html, viewed December 22, 1999.