US Ambassador Gregory Schulte hands over to IAEA Director General Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei the communication of the US ratification of its Additional Protocol with the IAEA in January 2009.

(Source: Petr Pavlicek/IAEA)

The Additional Protocol (AP) was passed by the IAEA Board of Governors in 1997 to address the failures of existing safeguards measures to detect the Iraqi nuclear weapons program prior to the Gulf War. The AP provides multiple measures for strengthening the effectiveness and improving the efficiency of IAEA safeguards that could not be implemented under the legal authority of traditional safeguards agreements including:

• Additional physical access to sites of IAEA member states where nuclear material is or could be present
• Expands the use of unannounced inspections
• Allows for collection of environmental samples