Proliferation Security Initiative: Agencies Have Adopted Policies and Procedures but Steps Needed to Meet Reporting Requirement and to Measure Results

PSI is a multinational effort to prevent the trafficking of WMD, their delivery systems, and related materials to and from states and nonstate actors of proliferation concern. PSI has no formal organization or bureaucracy. In the United States, PSI is not a program housed in a single agency, but instead is a set of activities with participation by seven agencies and the intelligence community. PSI encourages partnership among states to work together to develop a broad range of legal, diplomatic, economic, military, law enforcement, and other capabilities to prevent WMD-related air, land, or sea transfers to states and nonstate actors of proliferation concern. International participation is voluntary, and there are no binding treaties on those who choose to participate. Countries supporting PSI are expected to endorse PSI principles, embodied in four broad goals in the Statement of Interdiction Principles of September 2003, by a voluntary, nonbinding political commitment to those principles. See appendix II for the full text of the Statement of Interdiction Principles. They also voluntarily participate in PSI activities according to their own capabilities. According to the principles, PSI participants use existing national and international authorities to put an end to WMD-related trafficking and take steps to strengthen those authorities, as necessary.