Nuclear Experts Offer Draft Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty

A panel of nuclear experts yesterday presented a proposed version of a long-awaited international treaty to ban the production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons.  President Barack Obama said last month that establishing a cutoff treaty would be one of the "concrete steps toward a world without nuclear weapons...To cut off the building blocks needed for a bomb, the United States will seek a new treaty that verifiably ends the production of fissile material intended for use in state nuclear weapons."  In his April 5th speech in Prague the president said, "If we are serious about stopping the spread of these weapons, then we should put an end to the dedicated production of weapons-grade materials that create them."  

The draft treaty was prepared by the International Panel on Fissile Materials, which is co-chaired by Ploughshares Fund advisor Frank von Hippel and grantee R. Rajaraman.  Read their report here.