한국의 핵농축 권한에 대한 소고

A Study on South Korea’s Right to Enrich

Securing the right to enrich is, in essence, a necessary proposition as a sovereign state. While there are no current international laws prohibiting uranium enrichment and reprocessing for peaceful purposes, the United States strictly bans enrichment and reprocessing through the bilateral nuclear agreement. As the majority of South Korea’s prominent politicians and the vast majority of South Korean nuclear experts believe that a nuclear bomb would in the long term be a threat to their national interests, South Korea has ever maintained its stance that the 1992 denuclearization joint statement with North Korea, in addition to the nuclear cooperation pact with the United States remains valid. South Korea acknowledges that possession of nuclear weapons would provide only a short-term regional advantage that would turn into a longer-term vulnerability, because sooner or later, Japan, which many nuclear pundits claim is on the threshold of a de-facto nuclear-armed state in many respects, would follow suit and a regional nuclear arms race would be inescapable. The technical choices South Korea has made in the configuration of the nuclear program demonstrate a strong preference for a robust enrichment capability rather than for a rapid nuclear weapons breakout capability. Given that South Korea’s development program is focused on next-generation technology in terms of nuclear export, it is time to consider how to obtain the right to enrich, including the possibility of nullifying the dead-on-arrival 1992 denuclearization declaration.