Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Must Be Unconditional

On August 20, 2013 the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), meeting in Buenos Aires, Argentina, issued the CELAC Declaration on Nuclear Disarmament.  This declaration will be distributed as an official document at the September 26 High-Level Meeting of the United Nations General Assembly on Nuclear Disarmament and covers numerous aspects of nuclear disarmament.  Among the most notable aspects of the CELAC Declaration is its treatment of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

In three simple resolutions within the declaration, CELAC expressed their steadfast rejection of the enhancement of existing nuclear weapons and the development of new types of nuclear weapons and called on all states to cease nuclear weapon testing, nuclear explosions, and relevant non-explosive experiments for the purpose of nuclear weapons development.  They also reiterated demands for a true comprehensive nuclear test ban.  Alternative methods of nuclear testing were described as “contrary to the object and purpose of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), its spirit, if not the letter, undermining its desired impact as a nuclear disarmament measure.”

One particular phrase within the CELAC Declaration stuck out to me: that failure to properly adhere to the CTBT is “inconsistent with the obligation of complete nuclear disarmament.”  Worldwide treatment of the CTBT continues to undermine its intended role as a measure towards complete disarmament.  As of 2013, China, Egypt, Iran, Israel and the United States have signed but not ratified the Treaty. India, North Korea and Pakistan have not signed it.  A variety of nuclear tests and a huge range of nuclear development continue to plague our world, compromising even further the fragile line that we tread between calm and calamity.

The CTBT around the world

As a country with one of the largest stockpiles and continuing nuclear weapons programs in the world, the United States’s treatment of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is particularly deplorable.  We have signed but not ratified this document on the grounds that we wish to continue experimenting with our stockpile in the name of “safety and reliability.”  

A recently updated page regarding the CTBT found on the U.S. Department of State website states that the primary rationale behind any possible ratification of the treaty by the United States is that “the CTBT will hinder states that do not have nuclear weapons expertise and experience from advancing their nuclear weapons capabilities, while not affecting the ability of the United States to maintain its own nuclear deterrent force.”  As a young person who has only recently realized how much power the United States holds in terms of worldwide disarmament, I cannot help but feel despair at the U.S. failure to ratify and adhere to the CTBT.  Even the continuing and maintenance and updates to our current nuclear stockpile are unnecessary and only serve to perpetuate the myth of nuclear deterrence.

This, as described by CELAC, is precisely the sort of backwards thinking that is leading us away from full nuclear disarmament.  The purpose of the CTBT is by no means to make it possible for a nuclear deterrent to be maintained and the U.S. delay in ratifying the treaty should not come at the cost of the safety of billions of innocent people.  The United States has made it clear that in order for the treaty to be ratified, certain conditions must be met.  Only then, it seems, will the U.S. be willing to move towards cooperating with the treaty.  These conditions exist in complete disagreement of the very nature of the CTBT: stockpile security, subcritical and laser testing, and further development of nuclear technology go against all that the CTBT intends to bring about.

The CELAC Declaration is definitely a step in the right direction towards revealing the discrepancies in CTBT adherence.  It is my hope that this declaration’s thought-provoking presence as an official document at the upcoming UN General Assembly on Nuclear Disarmament could hold the key to further negotiations on not only the test-ban but on the eradication of nuclear weapons as a whole.  In the meantime, the struggle for nuclear disarmament will continue at all levels.

Louisa (Lulu) Dewey is an incoming undergraduate student at UC Berkeley and an intern at NAPF.

Sources:

Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) U.S. Department of State

CELAC Declaration on Nuclear Disarmament, Buenos Aires, Argentina, August 20, 2013

The CTBT and the US

This week, the CTBTO is holding a weeklong conference on the CTBTO and the progress being made to ratify the CTBT.  Simultaneously, there is an education program being held both in Geneva and online.  I am one of the participants, and already I have learned so much about the CTBTO and the delegation processes. Part of the course is a simulation of the Executive Council Deliberations over an On-site Inspection Request.  I was selected to be a part of the representative team for Columbia. 

The CTBT is the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. It was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on September 10, 1996, but it has not entered into force because eight Annex-2 states have not ratified the treaty.  They are the United States, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Israel, North Korea, China, and Iran.

Once the CTBT is ratified and becomes part of international law, the UN will be able to monitor the world.  If a state violates the CTBT the executive council has been set up for a democratic process to order on site inspections. 

It is the interest of the United States to ratify the CTBT because the United States has already ceased nuclear testing.  The US now uses computers to run calculations and virtual tests that are just as effective as actual tests.  If the US took a leading role in getting the rest of the other states to ratify the treaty, the risk of other states gaining nuclear weapons would be eliminated almost entirely.  The United States also has even more reason to ratify the CTBT since Russia has already done so.  Russia has the second most nuclear weapons in the world.  Russia tested the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated called the Tsar Bomba in 1961. 

This is the most supported nuclear treaty in the world.  The US and others continue to obstruct it.  The US needs to begin working with the international community instead of opposing it.  For the rest of the week, I will be learning more about how the CTBT is practically carried out.  I will also be taking part in the Executive Council simulation.  I hope to learn a lot this week.  Around a hundred other participants from around the world will be joining me.  Perhaps through education and awareness, support can spread for this important treaty.

President Obama in Berlin: "So long as nuclear weapons exist, we are not truly safe.”

President Barack Obama at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate

Today, in front of the historic Brandenburg Gate, US President Barack Obama stood where Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy before him also stood.  He uttered the words now made famous “Ich bin ein Berliner” to a cheering crowd waving German and American flags together.  President Obama addressed the issue of nuclear weapons and proliferation in his speech.  Perhaps more importantly, Obama said, “We may no longer live in fear of global annihilation, but so long as nuclear weapons exist, we are not truly safe.”  While most likely rhetoric, Mr. Obama was correct when he said this; for as long as weapons exist that can take out entire cities and regions, no country or people are safe if war breaks out. 

President Obama championed the New START Treaty in his speech saying, “I intend to seek negotiated cuts with Russia to move beyond Cold War nuclear postures.”  However, unless Mr. Obama has had some great change of heart, his actions during his Presidency regarding nuclear weapons have yet to meet the expectations laid out in his grandiose speeches.  The New START Treaty is made to sound ambitious and groundbreaking, it is however very conservative in its changes and unimaginative.  The new treaty sets the deployed weapon limit at 1550 warheads for each country.  The estimate of the US stockpile is estimated at 4,650 warheads, of which around 2,150 are deployed.  Russian nuclear stockpile is estimated at 4,500 weapons.  Only 1,800 of those warheads are deployed.  So the limit of 1550 really isn’t that drastic of a change.

Ratifying CTBT Enhances US Security

The US President Obama, in a 2009 speech in Prague, said, “To achieve a global ban on nuclear testing, my administration will immediately and aggressively pursue U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. After more than five decades of talks, it is time for the testing of nuclear weapons to finally be banned.” Three years have passed since his speech; however, the CTBT have not yet been ratified by the US.

The CTBT, adopted by the UN General Assembly, became open for signature in 1996, and the United States was the first nation to sign the treaty. According to the CTBTO, 183 nations have signed the CTBT, including all US allies in NATO. Among forty-four Annex 2 States, whose signature and ratification are required for the CTBT to enter into force, three states (North Korea, India, and Pakistan) have not signed, and five states (China, Egypt, Iran, Israel, the US) have signed but not ratified the treaty.

Simulated Nuclear Weapon Tests

Computer technology has been so developed that it is indispensable to our lives. One of the features that often benefits humanity is the simulations. By means of simulations with existing data, we can estimate a possible outcome, for instance damage from an earthquake, and prepare for the outcome when it actually occurs. Today, however, the US government is spending money to improve computer simulation technology in order to conduct a most controversial experiment, a nuclear-weapon test.

By using a supercomputer, a nuclear weapon test can be done without exploding a bomb. Thus, it can be said that it is better than previous tests which required nuclear explosions, in terms of safety, security, and the environment. Moreover, because the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) forbids all detonations of nuclear test weapons in all environments, the simulations are one of the ways to operate a nuclear test in accordance with the treaty.¹