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Abstract

For years international community has been making its every effort, through national and international legal measures, to ensure that nuclear energy which constitutes 6.6 per cent of the world total energy is used for peaceful purposes. However, there are still four concerns in this relation: to ensure that such energy is used in accordance with basic security standards; to ensure that the nuclear materials and arsenals are protected against theft and vandalism; the atomic installations and equipment are not attacked in armed conflicts; and the atomic materials and tools are not used for military purposes. One reason for this is the fact that the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and its vital role for the humanity has been twisted with proliferation of nuclear weapons and the atomic bombs. The cause of this is clear:
knowledge, materials and techniques required for the production of atomic weapons are often the same as those which are needed for the production of nuclear energy and research. International law of energy is, inter alia, to regulate the use of energy and to remove the mentioned-concerns. The IAEA under its own Statute and within the framework of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), is responsible for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy in the world. To this end it should report its measures to the General Assembly and the Security Council of the United Nations (UN). Iran is now among the countries whose nuclear activities are under the supervision of the IAEA. Whereas the conventional and customary international law as well as a number of principles of international law such as State sovereignty, the right to development, and non-intervention in the domestic affairs of States entitle Iran to possess nuclear technology for friendly purposes as a legitimate right, under several other principles of international law such as good faith and pacta sum servanda the country is bound to cooperate with the IAEA and to refrain from nuclear activities having non-peaceful purposes.

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