Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)

Statement on behalf of Non-Governmental Organisations to the Special Conference on Facilitating Entry into Force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

6-8 October, 1999
Vienna, Austria

1. Thank you Mr Chairman and delegates for affording the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) the opportunity to communicate our views and recommendations. We wish you success in your efforts at this important gathering to facilitate entry into force of the comprehensive test ban treaty (CTBT).

2. The support of NGOs for a comprehensive test ban treaty began more than forty years ago. In all these years, the NGO community has not faltered in its activities for a nuclear test ban, even in periods when negotiations among governments had come to a standstill or were interrupted. Banning nuclear testing is a fundamental step towards nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation and a cornerstone of future security.

3. We congratulate the nations of the world for concluding negotiations of the CTBT in 1996 and we thank those countries that have done their part to accelerate entry into force by ratifying the Treaty.

However, 20 key states have not ratified, unnecessarily delaying the entry into force of this vital agreement. The longer these states wait to sign and/or ratify the Treaty, the greater the chance that some nation may begin testing.

4. The Senate of the United States may soon vote on the CTBT. We welcome this belated attention, but are deeply concerned that at present the predictions do not show a clear majority to ratify the Treaty. Despite polls that show that more than 80 percent of Americans support the comprehensive test ban, the US Senate may defeat or postpone ratification, which could fatally undermine this important international agreement to end nuclear testing. This conference should send a message about what U.S. failure to ratify would mean. China and Russia would be unlikely then to approve the CTBT. India, Pakistan and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea would be under reduced pressure to sign. We risk the resumption of nuclear testing, leading to a new nuclear arms race.

In that event, the single most important arms control promise made by the United States and other four NPT nuclear weapon parties to over 170 non-nuclear-weapon NPT parties in 1995 to gain support for extending the NPT -- the promise to negotiate a comprehensive test ban treaty -- would have been nullified by the United States. How long would it be before countries whose NPT membership restrained them from seeking nuclear weapons started withdrawing from the Non-Proliferation Treaty? How could the NPT regime be sustained if testing resumed and non-nuclear weapon parties began withdrawing from their non-proliferation commitments? What kind of world would we have if ten, then twenty nations, had nuclear weapons?

If the United States Senate approves the CTBT, the global norm against testing will be enhanced. It is enhanced by each ratification. But hope for the Treaty will be dashed if a necessary party rejects the treaty by not signing or ratifying.

5. The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties prohibits actions against the object and purpose of a treaty pending ratification, so long as the necessary signatories intend to ratify. But if a signatory rejects the CTBT or decides not to submit it to its parliament for ratification, then (as far as the Vienna Convention is concerned) that signatory is free to test. If the U.S. Senate rejects the CTBT, officials in China and Russia may announce, when they are ready to resume testing, that they will no longer seek approval for the CTBT in their parliaments. If the U.S. Senate rejects the CTBT, India and Pakistan may decide to carry on testing, with appalling consequences for their region.

Bringing the CTBT into force promptly is of course the best way to prevent testing from resuming. Short of that, getting all countries that might test to sign -- including India, Pakistan and North Korea -- is the next best way to prevent further testing, assuming no necessary party's parliament rejects the Treaty.

This conference should send out a strong message to those among the 44 necessary parties who have not ratified -- and to India, Pakistan and North Korea, who have not signed -- that they should do so immediately. The world will otherwise hold these countries responsible for undermining the test ban and the nuclear control and non-proliferation regimes -- as the United States will be held responsible if it rejects the CTBT next week.

6. When India and Pakistan tested in 1998, there was strong condemnation from people all over the world, from the five NPT nuclear weapon countries, the UN Security Council, the G-8, the European Union, the Organisation of American States, the ASEAN regional forum, and also from a number of especially concerned states, including several that had recently given up nuclear weapon aspirations, such as Argentina, Brazil, South Africa and Ukraine. When China and France carried on testing in 1995, both countries were strongly condemned and incurred serious political and economic costs.

This conference should condemn future testing and call upon governments, businesses and people from around the world to promise to respond to any future test by withholding trade and other business support from the testing countries.

7. This conference needs to describe the importance that the peoples of the world attach to ending testing, and to the CTBT, which is the only long term means to prevent nuclear explosions. This conference should name those that have not signed and ratified, especially the 44 countries which must join before the CTBT can enter into force. The conference should call on them to sign and/or ratify promptly, so that the Treaty enters into force before a further conference is required next year. The conference should also decide to send high level groups of emissaries to key countries which have not yet signed or ratified the Treaty.

8. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organisation (CTBTO) Preparatory Commission should be commended for its work in preparing for implementation of the CTBT. Inadequate preparation should not be presented as an obstacle to ratification by states or entry into force of the treaty. We urge each signatory to provide adequate financial support for the continued development and operation of the CTBTO so that the International Data Centre, the International Monitoring System and the Executive Secretariat are available and ready to verify compliance when the CTBT enters into force. States should also show more flexibility in working with the CTBTO to ensure the timely establishment of an effective verification system.

9. This conference should decide to convene another Special Conference under Article XIV if the CTBT has still not entered into force by next year. Unless otherwise decided by the voting members of the first Special Conference on Entry into Force, Article XIV allows for this process to 'be repeated at subsequent anniversaries of the opening for signature of this treaty'. Scheduling a second conference would set a new deadline and provide further pressure on the remaining holdouts. We hope that a further conference will not be necessary, but if it is, we urge the conference to consider a new venue for next year, such as New York City.

10. As non-governmental representatives we want to remind the governments of your grave responsibility, on behalf of the peoples of the world and future generations, to do what you can to prevent future nuclear explosions. The implementation of a CTBT has been a goal of world leaders, diplomats, scientists, physicians and millions of ordinary people from all walks of life for over four decades.

Retaining an option to conduct nuclear tests will raise tensions and increase instability. Testing will add to arsenals and make nuclear war more likely. Testing will reduce the monies available to governments to feed their hungry and educate their poor. Testing will increase long-lived radioactivity in the world. Radioactive contamination from atmospheric testing has already killed innocent people and deformed their babies. Radioactivity from underground tests has vented into the atmosphere in large and small quantities for decades. Enormous amounts of radioactive materials from underground tests remain beneath the surface of the earth, perhaps eventually to pollute underground water supplies. Scientists at the U.S. site in Nevada and at the former Soviet test site at Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan, have begun drilling wells to find out what direction the radioactivity in underground waters is moving and how fast.

The radioactivity from nuclear tests lasts many thousands of years. Further testing would provide more radioactive contamination to pollute the water supplies of future generations, endangering health and survival.

You have taken the first step in negotiating the CTBT. We urge you to do all that is within your power to ensure that the Treaty enters into force in the next year. Seize the chance now to end nuclear testing forever, as the next and indispensable step towards the elimination of nuclear threats.

This statement was prepared and supported by NGOs who have worked for a comprehensive test ban treaty for many years, in many countries, in many ways. George Bunn, chosen to present the statement on behalf of the NGOs, is a former US Ambassador to the Geneva Disarmament Conference, having served during the 1960s as general counsel of the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, with responsibilities for the Partial Test Ban Treaty and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

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