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The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its sometimes controversial director-general, Mohamed ElBaradei, were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize Oct. 7. The agency is charged with promoting the uses of nuclear technologies for peaceful purposes and verifying that such technologies are not used to build nuclear arms.

Hailing ElBaradei as “an unafraid advocate” of new nonproliferation efforts, the Norwegian Nobel Committee said that, “at a time when disarmament efforts appear to be deadlocked, when there is a danger that nuclear arms will spread both to states and to terrorist groups, and when nuclear power again appears to be playing an increasingly significant role, [the] IAEA’s work is of incalculable importance.”

The decision reflects, in part, the new roles that the IAEA and ElBaradei have played in recent years. ElBaradei has raised the profile of the agency by taking a more proactive and public role and tackling political issues as well as technical concerns.

The IAEA now finds itself at the crossroads of international security concerns. Preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons to new countries, such as Iran and North Korea, has taken on added importance with the end of the U.S.-Soviet nuclear rivalry. But succeeding in the quest to control weapons or materials has become more difficult because of technological advances and a more open global economy. The September 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington further ratcheted up these concerns as policymakers and the public pondered the damage the attackers could have done with a nuclear weapon.

Both the IAEA and individual states have struggled with these challenges. There have been some points of global agreement. Spending on IAEA weapons inspections has risen. The agency and leading member states have supported tightening IAEA safeguards that ensure that nuclear materials are used for peaceful purposes, in particular by encouraging universal adoption of the 1997 Model Additional Protocol. In a bid to thwart potential terrorist attacks, states have agreed to tighten global standards for protecting material. And, although they have differed on tactics, both ElBaradei and leaders such as President George W. Bush have offered plans to stop the development of new facilities that can produce the fissile material—highly enriched uranium and plutonium—for nuclear weapons.

Yet, how to deal with other nonproliferation challenges has been the subject of an intense, high-stakes international debate.

ElBaradei has supported more universal approaches that treat countries on a fairly even basis, with similar restrictions and obligations. These include such efforts as achieving a treaty cutting off new supplies of fissile material for weapons purposes, proposing new multilateral methods for supplying such material for peaceful uses, and enacting a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East. He has also preferred that changes be made and implemented in international fora such as the IAEA and once-every-five-year nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) review conferences. After winning the peace prize, he told reporters that the award “recognizes the role of multilateralism in resolving all of the challenges we are facing today.”

Yet, ElBaradei has had a difficult time moving forward on multilateral efforts because of a bitter divide between nuclear-weapon states such as the United States and those countries without these arms. Most notably, May’s NPT review conference failed to reach agreement on ways to move forward in confronting proliferation. (See ACT, July/August 2005.)

Non-nuclear-weapon states have questioned whether the nuclear-weapon states, have fulfilled their NPT commitments to make good faith efforts toward nuclear disarmament.

By contrast, the United States, the most powerful nuclear-weapon state, has focused on ensuring that terrorists or countries that might support them are denied such weapons. In this effort, Bush has placed his emphasis on “coalitions of the willing” rather than international institutions, whether it is to stop arms proliferation or the development of uranium-enrichment and plutonium reprocessing facilities. In arguing that both sides have to meet their commitments, ElBaradei has sometimes come under fire from Washington.

The biggest points of contention between ElBaradei and Washington, however, occurred when he challenged Bush administration claims about Iraq’s and Iran’s nuclear programs.

The most intense clash occurred over Bush administration charges that Iraq was reviving its nuclear weapons program. On March 7, 2003, ElBaradei rebutted many of the U.S. claims. He did so only a month after then-Secretary of State Colin Powell told the UN Security Council that he had evidence of such a revival, and only weeks before a U.S.-led invasion citing the program as a justification.

“After three months of intrusive inspections, we have to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq,” ElBaradei said. Since the invasion, several U.S. investigations have backed up ElBaradei’s assertions.

Some U.S. and other Western officials had grumbled that ElBaradei had not been tough enough on Iran, which the United States contends is pursuing nuclear weapons. In particular, they had urged him to recommend to the IAEA Board of Governors that it find Iran in noncompliance for its many violations of its safeguards agreement. Such a finding automatically triggers a referral to the Security Council, leaving open the possibility of sanctions or even military force.

ElBaradei has disappointed these officials by declaring that he has not found indisputable evidence that Tehran is pursuing a nuclear weapons program. During a February interview with Arms Control Today, ElBaradei had said that much of the criticism was misplaced, noting that he had said that Iran had “cheated” and was in breach of its safeguards obligations. More recently, he rebuked Tehran before the board for its intermittent and limited cooperation with the agency.

But he said he had not made a judgment about compliance because the question of what to do about Iran’s actions was “clearly a political assessment, which has to be made by member states,” not the agency’s staff. Indeed, the agency’s board made such a judgment in September when it decided that Tehran’s noncompliance should eventually be reported to the Security Council. (See ACT, October 2005.)

On North Korea, ElBaradei and the United States have both supported Security Council action but have been stymied by other countries, especially China, a veto-wielding permanent member of that body. The agency referred the case to the Security Council after Pyongyang ejected IAEA inspectors in December 2002 and subsequently announced its withdrawal from the NPT. China has insisted that the Security Council not act on the case as China, the United States, North Korea, and three other countries seek a negotiated solution.

The tensions between ElBaradei and Washington peaked last year when the Bush administration indicated that it would not support ElBaradei for a third four-year term at the agency. ElBaradei first took office in 1997.

The United States said that it wanted ElBaradei replaced on the basis of a policy supported by some UN members that no director-general of any UN body should be elected to more than two terms.

But a former top aide to Powell said that John Bolton, then undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, had mounted an underhanded campaign to unseat ElBaradei. (See ACT, July/August 2005.)

Moreover, The Washington Post reported in December 2004 that the Bush administration had intercepted dozens of ElBaradei’s phone calls with Iranian diplomats and was scrutinizing them for evidence they could use to force him out.

In the end, however, U.S. efforts to recruit an alternative candidate fell short, and ElBaradei retained considerable support from European countries such as France and Germany as well as from developing states. (See ACT, March 2005.)

ElBaradei can be expected to continue to play a pivotal role during his next four years at the IAEA’s helm, engaging in such issues as determining how to safeguard additional Indian nuclear facilities after a July nuclear cooperation agreement between the United States and India, further probing the black-market nuclear network of Pakistan’s Abdul Qadeer Khan, and attempting to manage the expected growth of civilian nuclear power without sparking additional proliferation.