米国の対外原子力政策における同盟国の役割

―包括的事前同意制度の成立、一九七七―一九八二―

抄録

U.S. nuclear cooperation policy has been based on programmatic prior consent that allows reprocessing of U.S.-origin spent fuel and use of plutonium only if a country has advanced peaceful nuclear program and poses no proliferation risks. This policy has facilitated cooperation among Western countries by balancing nuclear nonproliferation and peaceful use of nuclear energy. Until President Reagan adopted the policy as NSDD39 in 1982, however, Western countries experienced rough 4 years since the previous Carter administration insisted on ceasing all peaceful use of plutonium for the sake of nuclear nonproliferation. This article focused on how U.S. allies successfully pulled Washington back to more cooperative nuclear policy during those 4 years. At first, when President Carter proposed to halt peaceful use of plutonium, other industrialized countries opposed to such dramatic policy change and pointed out the need of reprocessing spent fuel, recovering plutonium, and reusing it as nuclear fuel. As U.S. officials failed to persuade its allies through bilateral talks and international experts meeting called International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Evaluation, they started to reconsider its policy during the second half of 1978. At that time, while Western European countries deny any negotiation with Washington since they can continue their nuclear energy programs without U.S. consent, Tokyo sought cooperation with Washington on this issue. The reason was the Japan-U.S. nuclear cooperation agreement that admitted U.S. veto over the use of plutonium extracted from U.S.-origin nuclear material in Japan. Thus, in response to more cooperative policy proposed by Washington on December 1978, Tokyo proposed a counter offer that would harmonize nuclear policies of both countries and give programmatic prior consent to Japan. Ambassador Gerald Smith, the czar of nuclear issues in Carter administration, welcomed Japanese proposal as leverage to gain support from Western allies. He insisted that the United States should agree with Japanese on tougher nuclear export regulations and limited use of plutonium in Japan, then reach a consensus with Europeans based on U.S.-Japanese agreement, and finally negotiate with emerging nuclear countries in the Third world. Although staffers in the Carter White House blocked such policy change, President Reagan defeated Carter in the presidential election of 1980 and adopted this idea in 1982. This policy enables successive U.S. administrations to tighten nuclear export regulations by admitting plutonium utilization in its closest allies. As a result, after 4 years of confrontation, Japan and Western European countries secured support from Washington regarding their peaceful use of plutonium by cooperation and opposition respectively. This paper shows that narrow-minded U.S. nuclear cooperation policy was not only a serious problem but a chance for Western allies to participate in reconstructing future international nuclear cooperation.