Balance Hyde with Indian law ============================
Insofar as the text of an agreement can protect one side when the other is bent on reneging on its commitments, Article 16.4 of the Indian 123 and the Vienna Convention give New Delhi as much legal cover as Article 2.1 of the Chinese 123 gives Beijing. Of course, India would get more effective protection by building a strategic fuel reserve on its territory. There is, however, the issue of the U.S. %u201Cright of return%u201D of exported material in the event of termination of cooperation and the fear that this strategic reserve may not be fully immunised from returnability.
Though Article 14 of the 123 provides effective protection for India, the Government should consider the merit of adding a further layer of insurance under domestic statute just to be doubly sure. Specifically, Parliament could enact an amendment to the Atomic Energy Act of 1962 as well as a change in the Special Chemicals, Organisms, Materials, Equipment and Technologies (SCOMET) guidelines making it illegal for nuclear material or equipment to be transferred out of the country if the transfer would disrupt the continuous operation of our power reactors or pose an environmental or security risk. Similarly, the AEA could be amended to make it illegal to import into India any reactor under a commercial contract that does not explicitly provide for the reprocessing of spent fuel.
In other words, rather than seeing the Left%u2019s call for P
