UPSC Prelims 2017 · Question 53 of 99

UPSC Prelims 2017 question on Nuclear Security Summits

Consider the following statements:

1. The Nuclear Security Summits are periodically held under the aegis of the United Nations.

2. The International Panel on Fissile Materials is an organ of International Atomic Energy Agency.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

  1. 1 only
  2. 2 only
  3. Both 1 and 2
  4. Neither 1 nor 2
Show answer

Answer: D. Neither 1 nor 2

Verdict

The answer is neither 1 nor 2. The Nuclear Security Summits were a United States led initiative, and the International Panel on Fissile Materials is independent of the IAEA.

Analysis

Statement 1 is INCORRECT. The Nuclear Security Summits were convened at the initiative of the United States beginning in 2010, outside the United Nations framework, and the fourth and final summit was held in Washington in 2016. Statement 2 is INCORRECT. The International Panel on Fissile Materials, founded in January 2006, is an independent group of arms control and non proliferation experts drawn from seventeen countries including both nuclear weapon and non nuclear weapon states, and it is not an organ of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Source

Indian Express explainer on the Nuclear Security Summit.

How to crack it

Both statements assert institutional parentage, and parentage is where nuclear governance questions are usually decided. Keep the architecture straight: the IAEA is the treaty based safeguards body, the Nuclear Suppliers Group is an export control cartel, the summits were an ad hoc leaders' process, and expert panels such as the IPFM are independent civil society bodies. Sorting each name into treaty body, cartel, summit process or expert panel answers the whole family.

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