ABSTRACT
After confidence in the existing Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) regime declined in the mid-1970s there were several suggestions for changing the regime. They ranged from proposals to abolish the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in its present form to less far-reaching concepts for supplementing the present system of safeguards. In the second half of 1970s, the IAEA, with much United States encouragement, carried out a detailed study of the concept of a multinational fuel cycle centre of the latter type. The study showed that such an undertaking would have obvious advantages compared with the alternative of a number of smaller, national fuel cycle plants; advantages of cost, safety and of reducing the number of weapon-usable material factories. As an alternative to multinational reprocessing or storage of separated plutonium the Carter Administration encouraged the idea of multinational spent fuel centres. Another proposal of the second half of the 1970s was to create an international nuclear fuel authority.
