On December 1 Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, the threeterm International Atomic Energy Agency director-general and the sharer, with the IAEA, of the Nobel Peace Prize, passed the keys to his office to his successor, Ambassador Yukiya Amano of Japan. It is not possible to describe his controversial term of office in one or two sentences. Yet, he will probably be remembered as the director-general who politicized his position more than any of his predecessors.
The IAEA is a technical organization, with many technical duties, from the peaceful uses of nuclear techniques, in medicine and agriculture, to mention but two of the many useful areas that employ these techniques, to guiding the safe use of nuclear power reactors.
In addition, however, the IAEA was entrusted by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to verify, through inspections, that the Non-Nuclear Weapons States (NNWS) are not engaged in the illicit development of nuclear weapons. Although the IAEA's achievements in its purely technical tasks are impressive, it has failed in many of its non-proliferation duties. To be sure, the performance of the technical duties of inspections within the legal bounds of their authority was commendable.
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