Brazilian-Argentine Agency for Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials (ABACC) CHAPTER 2 — THE 21st CENTURY STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENT The ABACC is an independent international agency created by the Brazilian and Argentine governments. It is responsible for verifying the peaceful use of nuclear material, which may be used, direct or indirectly, in the production of nuclear weapons. The ABACC was instituted by the Agreement for the Exclusively Peaceful Use of Nuclear Energy, signed in 1991, between Argentina and Brazil. By means of this agreement, the Common System of Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials (SCCC) was also established and is administered by ABACC. Since June 2011, the Four Party Agreement signed by Brazil, Argentina, the ABACC and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been acknowledged by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) as an agreement granting, in political terms, guarantees equivalent to those provided in the additional protocols of the IAEA’s safeguards agreements. Besides the NPT, Brazil is a party to the Treaty of Tlatelolco15, the first instrument to establish a nuclear weapons free zone in a densely populated region. In a joint declaration, in January 2011, Brazil and Argentina stressed the high degree of integration reached by both countries through bilateral nuclear cooperation by means of significant projects in the scope of the Binational Nuclear Energy Commission (COBEN). Both nations also ratified all terms of the Joint Presidential Declaration on Nuclear Policy, signed in San Juan, Argentina, in August 2010, and promoted a political dialogue initiated in the Permanent Committee for Nuclear Policy ( CPPN). The purpose of this forum is to continue the exchange of information on the status of both countries’ nuclear programs, and also on the coordination of positions in international forums, such as the Nuclear Suppliers Group, among others, as well as the political evaluations of the bilateral nuclear cooperation and the performance of ABACC. Brazil’s international action in this area seeks to reinforce national independence and to guarantee that international rules against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction do not become incompatible with autonomous technological education, including in strategic areas such as the nuclear sector. The Tlatelolco Treaty is the conventional name given to the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean, established on February 14, 1967, in Mexico City. The treaty came into force on April 25, 1969, and was signed and ratified by all 33 Latin American and Caribbean nations. Brazil signed the Treaty in 1967 and incorporated it into its legal system through Decree No 1.246 of 1994. Signatory states agreed to forbid and prevent the “testing, use, manufacture, production or acquisition by any means whatsoever of any nuclear weapons” as well as the “receipt, storage, installation, deployment and any form of possession of any nuclear weapon”. 15 44 DEFENSE WHITE PAPER