The global nuclear order rests on three core principles enshrined in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT): non-proliferation, disarmament, and the peaceful use of nuclear energy. To uphold these principles, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was established in 1957 under the United Nations framework as the central institution responsible for nuclear verification, safety, safeguards, monitoring and development of peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Its mandate is to ensure that civilian nuclear programs are not diverted toward military purposes and that states comply with their non-proliferation commitments.
To fulfil this role, the IAEA implements safeguards, which are technical verification measures including inspections, material accounting, surveillance, and reporting systems. These safeguards are designed to confirm that declared nuclear materials and facilities are used exclusively for peaceful purposes. However, their effectiveness is not uniform and depends entirely on the legal scope of a country’s commitments and the extent of facilities placed under inspection.
In the case of India, its relationship with the IAEA operates outside the NPT framework, as India is not a signatory to the treaty. Instead, India follows an item-specific safeguards agreement under the India–IAEA Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement. This system means that only the nuclear facilities India declares as civilian are inspected by the IAEA, while the rest are not. This creates a clear gap in transparency and limits full verification.
This selective arrangement was further reinforced by the 2008 Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) waiver, which allowed India to engage in global nuclear trade despite not being an NPT member. The waiver was justified based on energy cooperation and strategic engagement. Because it may allow India to access nuclear materials and technology without full-scope safeguards, which are usually required for most other non-nuclear-weapon states. As a result, India occupies a unique position in the global nuclear order, receiving the benefits of cooperation without full compliance with comprehensive safeguard obligations.
Obviously, India’s prestige status creates certain gaps. One key gap is that safeguards only apply to declared civilian facilities. As a result, India can run two separate nuclear programs, one under international monitoring and another outside it. This separation limits the ability of the IAEA to verify the full scope of India’s nuclear material flow and raises concerns about transparency and accountability.
These concerns become more significant considering India’s three-stage nuclear program. The program begins with pressurized heavy water reactors, moves to fast breeder reactors in the second stage, and ultimately aims to utilise thorium-based reactors in the final stage. The fast breeder reactor stage is particularly critical, as it can produce more fissile material than it consumes, including plutonium, which has both civilian and potential strategic applications. Importantly, key components of this stage are not fully covered under IAEA safeguards, raising questions about oversight and material accounting.
This technical reality has broader strategic implications. India’s ability to expand its fissile material base through unsafeguarded or partially safeguarded breeder reactors may gradually alter the regional nuclear balance in South Asia. Over time, this could contribute to a qualitative and quantitative shift in strategic capabilities, particularly in a region already marked by nuclear asymmetry and instability.
International cooperation has also played a role in shaping this dynamic. Following the NSG waiver and the India-specific safeguards agreement, India gained access to global nuclear fuel markets. This allows it to conserve domestic uranium resources, which can then be allocated to unsafeguarded reactors. While this does not necessarily violate existing legal agreements, it raises concerns about the broader intent of non-proliferation norms and the potential strategic advantages such arrangements may create.
Against this backdrop, the recent statements by the Director General of the IAEA highlighting India’s nuclear reactor development as part of peaceful nuclear cooperation carry significant weight. However, such acknowledgements also risk presenting an incomplete picture. By focusing mainly on civilian cooperation, these assessments often ignore key weaknesses in the safeguards system in India’s case. In particular, they overlook India’s unsafeguarded advanced reactors and the fact that fast breeder technology can be used for both civilian and military purposes.
Ultimately, India’s nuclear development shows a key challenge in the global non-proliferation system: how to include emerging nuclear powers without weakening the consistency and universality of safeguard standards. The concern is not about denying peaceful nuclear development, but about ensuring that verification mechanisms remain robust, uniform, and fully reflective of strategic realities. In South Asia, where nuclear deterrence already shapes regional stability, any ambiguity in safeguards coverage carries implications not just for transparency, but for long-term strategic balance. From a Pakistani perspective, the DG’s statement is ill-advised mainly because of its lack of judgment about the negative implications of praising India’s unsafeguarded nuclear reactors.
Ms Shahwana Binte Sohail is Research Assistant at the Center for International Strategic Studies (CISS), Islamabad.
