A Cryptographic Escrow for Treaty Declarations and Step-by-Step Verification

TL;DR

This paper introduces a cryptographic escrow system enabling states to securely commit to complete declarations of sensitive military information and reveal it gradually, facilitating verification while addressing concerns over premature disclosure.

Contribution

It presents a novel cryptographic escrow method for step-by-step verification of treaty declarations, enhancing trust and security in arms-control negotiations.

Findings

Allows sequential disclosure of sensitive information

Supports verification aligned with diplomatic processes

Applicable to various arms-control agreements

Abstract

The verification of arms-control and disarmament agreements requires states to provide declarations, including information on sensitive military sites and assets. There are important cases, however, where negotiations of these agreements are impeded because states are reluctant to provide any such data, because of concerns about prematurely handing over militarily significant information. To address this challenge, we present a cryptographic escrow that allows a state to make a complete declaration of sites and assets at the outset and commit to its content, but only reveal the sensitive information therein sequentially. Combined with an inspection regime, our escrow allows for step-by-step verification of the correctness and completeness of the initial declaration so that the information release and inspections keep pace with parallel diplomatic and political processes. We apply this approach to the possible denuclearization of North Korea. Such approach can be applied, however, to any agreement requiring the sharing of sensitive information.