About the IPNDV
The International Partnership for Nuclear Disarmament Verification (IPNDV) is an ongoing initiative that includes more than 25 countries with and without nuclear weapons. Together, the Partners are identifying challenges associated with nuclear disarmament verification, and developing potential procedures and technologies to address those challenges.
Goals
The IPNDV is working to identify critical gaps and technical challenges associated with monitoring and verifying nuclear disarmament. In order to do this, the Partnership assesses monitoring and verification issues across the nuclear weapons lifecycle.
The IPNDV is also building and diversifying international capacity and expertise on nuclear disarmament monitoring and verification. Through the Partnership, more countries will understand the process, as well as the significant technical challenges that must be overcome. At the same time, the Partnership is highlighting the importance of verification in future reductions of nuclear weapons.
History and Approach
Over the past three decades, the number of nuclear weapons has decreased dramatically from the peak arsenals of the Cold War. Key to these dramatic reductions has been the ability of countries to verify each other’s compliance with implementing the treaties. The importance of verification in future nuclear disarmament efforts is paramount and requires increasing the collective capacity of nations to address verification issues. One important venue for this capacity building is the continued pursuit of cooperative efforts like the IPNDV.
The initiative began in December 2014, when the U.S. Department of State announced that the U.S. government would lead the IPNDV, in cooperation with the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI).
More than 25 countries have taken part in this ongoing effort. The Partnership is organized around three working groups that meet several times a year and report their progress to an annual Plenary meeting. The Plenary meetings bring together senior government officials and technical experts to monitor the progress of the working groups, discuss common themes and challenges, and increase the understanding of other relevant research that may inform the overall work of the Partnership.
The IPNDV set into motion a key recommendation from NTI’s Innovating Verification: New Tools & New Actors to Reduce Nuclear Risks series, released in July 2014: States should come together now to begin an international process to assess verification gaps, develop collaborative technical work streams and contribute to overall global nuclear threat reduction. The Partnership’s work also builds on the U.S.-Russia monitoring and verification experience, the U.S.-UK Program on Nonproliferation and Arms Control Technology and the UK-Norway Initiative on Nuclear Warhead Dismantlement Verification.
Download a flyer about IPNDV here.
This website and the dismantlement interactive were developed with generous financial support from the Government of Canada.
