The historical paths of the IAEA with the two Koreas—the North, which succeeded in developing its own nuclear weapons, and the South, which abandoned its weapons program—have been more complex and less straightforward than is commonly assumed. South Korea became an IAEA member state in 1957 and ratified the NPT in 1975. However, throughout the 1970s, it maintained a clandestine nuclear weapons program. Moreover, despite the cessation of South Korea's military nuclear pursuits following the assassination of its president in 1979, suspicions about its nuclear ambitions were resurrected when the ROK government disclosed its past nuclear activities as it signed the Additional Protocol with the IAEA in 2004. The report revealed that South Korean scientists had separated a small amount of plutonium from irradiated uranium in 1982 and conducted some laboratory-scale experiments in 2000 to enrich uranium to a level exceeding the permitted limits set by the IAEA. The case of the DPRK with the IAEA was more dramatic, as is widely known, with its withdrawal from IAEA membership in 1994 and its expulsion of IAEA inspectors in 2009.

Consequently, based on comprehensive research in the ROK, US, and IAEA archives, an analysis of publicly accessible data, and interviews with key stakeholders, this MSCA project aims to illuminate the understudied history of the two Koreas' challenges and contributions to the IAEA, while also examining the lessons that the IAEA has derived from its experience.