When Barack Obama took over the US presidency in 2009, North Korea could barely muster one nuclear weapon and had just a handful of missiles that could reach Japan. Yet despite tight international sanctions, tough external pressure and on-again-off-again negotiations, barely a decade later Pyongyang had managed to develop advanced nuclear weapons capable of striking cities in the continental United States.

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Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) are widely heralded as the next major leap in civilian nuclear energy. Promising enhanced safety, modular scalability and carbon-free electricity, they are viewed as a crucial innovation for global decarbonization and energy security. However, beneath this optimism lies a growing unease within the nuclear policy community relating to the proliferation and safeguards challenges that SMRs pose to the existing global nuclear governance system, notably the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

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