We've blogged before about the UK-France 'Teutates' treaty which allows both nations to co-operate on research into the physics of nuclear weapon explosions, and highlighted concerns about how the treaty undermines the spirit of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty. One way in which France and the UK could help alleviate these concerns is by telling the world a lot more about the type of experimental work which will be carried out under the scope of the treaty, to demonstrate that they are not undertaking research programmes which have the aim of developing new nuclear weapons.
The US National Nuclear Security Agency is able to publish information of this type already, and in a presentation to the British International Studies Association 'Global Nuclear Order' conference (University of Leicester, 19 September 2013) Nuclear Information Service Director Peter Burt will outline how the UK and France could publish similar information to both increase international confidence that their research programmes do not have the aim of modernising nuclear arsenals and support steps by the nuclear-weapon states to increase transparency.
Download the presentation to the BISA conference here: