The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), headquartered in Vienna and composed of around 170 member states with a staff exceeding 2,500, operates as a global body linking nuclear security and development.
Closely associated with the United Nations, the Agency’s mandate rests on three main pillars. The first concerns the promotion of peaceful nuclear technologies, helping countries use atomic science for development goals such as health, energy, and agriculture. The second focuses on nuclear safety through the creation of international safety standards and peer review of national regulations. The third and most politically sensitive pillar is verification, where the IAEA implements safeguards agreements and conducts inspections under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) to ensure that nuclear materials are used solely for peaceful purposes and to prevent their diversion to weapons programs.
Since the early 1990s, the IAEA has been at the centre of media criticism. Accusations of politicisation—whether through selective scrutiny, unequal enforcement, or the instrumental use of its reports by powerful states, particularly the United States—have cast doubt on its impartiality.
The bombings of the nuclear facilities in Iran undertaken by Israel and the United States in June 2025, with reference to the Agency reports to justify the act, have brought criticism of the role of the IAEA to the fore once again, with Iran putting a suspension of cooperation with the Agency into practice.
A tarnished legacy
The Agency’s involvement in countries such as Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and Libya has repeatedly exposed it to claims that its technical work is shaped—or at least overshadowed—by the strategic agendas of powerful states. In Iraq, for instance, following the Gulf War, the IAEA’s inspection findings were later invoked to justify extended sanctions and ultimately military intervention. Although the Agency itself did not uncover evidence of an active nuclear weapons program before the 2003 invasion, its reports were selectively cited to support the U.S. case for the war, despite no weapons of mass destruction ever being found, illustrating how verification mechanisms can be politicised. In North Korea, the expulsion of IAEA inspectors in 2002 signalled Pyongyang’s outright rejection of international oversight and its conviction that the Agency acted under U.S. influence. Similarly, Libya’s voluntary disarmament and cooperation with IAEA inspectors in 2003 failed to protect it from NATO intervention in 2011—an event that severely eroded global confidence in verification guarantees. Across these cases, the IAEA’s technical assessments were reinterpreted or instrumentalised by member states, undermining perceptions of its independence.
The U.S. Influence
The politicisation of the IAEA stems primarily from the American financial and diplomatic control over the organisation. By providing around 25–30% of the IAEA’s funding, the U.S. exercises direct control over the Agency’s ability to act, laying the groundwork for interpreting reports within a U.S. framework. Diplomatically, the U.S. lobbying potential is seen in the choosing of the Director General and the voting of the Board of Governors. As such, the election of Yukiya Amano in 2009 is commonly recalled as a proceeding in which U.S. backing provided the determining factor.
In the past, IAEA reports have been used as a political lever. The U.S., before their 2003 invasion of Iraq, used IAEA reports to demonstrate that Saddam Hussein had stores of weapons of mass destruction, though the stores were never discovered. The same dynamic can be seen in the case of Iran: the June 2025 IAEA report (GOV/2025/38) pointed out that Iran had failed to declare nuclear material at three secret locations, and the Agency’s conclusions closely coincided with remarks issued by Israel and the U.S. The report also advised that the levels of enriched uranium held by Iran could reach a level sufficient to produce nuclear weapons within a couple of weeks, and these conclusions provided a principal basis for the June 2025 attacks.
Iran
As a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), Iran has long welcomed IAEA inspections and consistently affirmed the peaceful nature of its nuclear facilities. Tensions that had begun with the U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 JCPOA in 2018, however, had risen in June 2025. Israel’s ‘Operation Rising Lion’ attacks on Fordow and Natanz on 13 June, followed by U.S. involvement with B-2 bombers and Tomahawk missiles on 21–22 June, were publicly justified by IAEA reports. This 12-day’ Iran-Israel War’ suspended Iran’s uranium enrichment temporarily but raised the risk of leakage of radiation.
Following the attacks, the Iranian parliament on 25 June passed a piece of legislation suspending cooperation with the IAEA and denying inspectors access to the country. Because the UN sanctions (snapback) might be reactivated and the potential for future attacks loomed over the country, Director General Rafael Grossi allowed inspectors to resume access to the country. Tehran still had UN sanctions to confront, in any case. The developments leave the possibility of Iran leaving the NPT, something that might spark further regional war, along with accelerating nuclear proliferation across the Middle East.
Structural Bias and Unequal Enforcement
The IAEA’s monitoring practices have long been criticised for inconsistency, with non-Western states facing disproportionate scrutiny while others receive leniency. This uneven enforcement has entrenched a structural imbalance between signatories and non-signatories of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Israel, India, and Pakistan—all outside the Treaty—possess active nuclear arsenals yet remain largely beyond the Agency’s full inspection regime. Israel’s policy of nuclear ambiguity allows it to maintain an undeclared stockpile—estimated between 80 and 200 warheads—without international oversight, while India and Pakistan have openly tested nuclear weapons and continue to enhance their delivery systems. Meanwhile, the IAEA’s reporting and enforcement have concentrated heavily on NPT signatories such as Iran, creating what many non-Western diplomats call a “compliance trap,” where states that join the Treaty face stricter obligations than those that remain outside it.
Israel exemplifies this double standard. Although it is a member of the Agency, its non-NPT status exempts it from comprehensive inspections, a loophole that exposes the fundamental inconsistency within the IAEA system. Member states can thus avoid meaningful oversight while benefiting from political protection. Major powers have often used the Agency’s reports to justify sanctions or military actions against targeted states while refraining from holding Israel accountable for its undeclared arsenal. The Dimona nuclear facility, for instance, remains beyond inspection, and Western powers have consistently blocked attempts to subject Israel to NPT-level scrutiny. A 2015 proposal for IAEA inspection of Israel was vetoed, reinforcing perceptions that the Agency favours Western-aligned states.
The perceptions of bias are only reinforced by the stained history of the organisation. For instance, North Korea’s withdrawal from IAEA monitoring prompted severe international sanctions, while Israel faced none for its persistent opacity. Such disparities have eroded trust in the Agency’s neutrality and undermined its legitimacy as a global body tasked with safeguarding non-proliferation.
Conclusion
Questions about the IAEA’s impartiality now extend well beyond the Iran case, casting doubt on the credibility of the entire nuclear governance system. The Agency’s perceived subservience to powerful states and uneven enforcement of safeguards have weakened the foundation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. If the IAEA continues to privilege some nations while policing others, the very rules designed to prevent nuclear proliferation could unravel.
To restore its integrity, the IAEA must pursue structural reform—reducing dependence on dominant donors, ensuring transparent leadership selection, and shielding technical reports from political influence. Establishing comprehensive verification for non-NPT states would further strengthen its legitimacy.
Reclaiming credibility as a neutral arbiter is not merely a bureaucratic necessity; it is a geopolitical imperative. Without reform, the IAEA risks transforming from guardian of the nuclear order into an instrument of its decay.
