The 123 Doesn’t Add Up

Hindustan Times
Mar 17, 2008

The United States concludes bilateral inter-governmental agreements on the peaceful uses of nuclear energy in terms of the provisions of Section 123 of the US Atomic Energy Act, 1954. It has concluded such ‘123 Agreements’ with 24 countries up till now. However, it is only in the case of the 24th — the agreement with India — that both the US government and the Congress here felt the need for the Agreement to be preceded and governed by a special India-specific US Act, the Hyde Act. Unfortunately, it contains a number of restrictive, intrusive and extraneous clauses that have had to be reflected by the US negotiators and accepted by our joint negotiating team of senior officials and nuclear scientists from the Ministry of External Affairs and Department of Atomic Energy in arriving at our 123 Agreement. The Hyde Act runs into 41 pages of tightly formulated techno-politico-legal text. A careful analysis reveals that 22 of the 41 pages contain at least one, and often more, restrictive clauses or clauses that are deeply intrusive of our sovereignty or security.