ACRONYM Reports

Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty: Now or Never

ACRONYM Report No.8, October 1995

Executive Summary

Negotiations for a comprehensive test ban treaty (CTBT) opened at the Conference on Disarmament (CD) in January 1994 and continued through the year, resulting in a heavily bracketed rolling text in September 1994. This formed the basis for negotiations in 1995, which ran from 31 January to 22 September. This report reviews the 1995 session of the CD and the CTBT negotiations in Geneva.

The CD failed to agree its work programme or establish any other committees during 1995. While this left a clear run for CTBT negotiations, it demonstrated deep seated problems of structure and dysfunction in the Conference. At the end of the year the CD agreed to a two-stage process for expanding its membership from the present 37 to at least 60, with no date set for the new members' full admission to the CD. Though it is generally agreed that participation by a wider group of more representative states would give greater validity to the disarmament negotiations, serious thought must be given to the structures, groups and mechanisms for decision-making in an enlarged CD, to avoid the kind of gridlock that bedeviled its work in 1995.
Progress on a CTBT has continued slowly. Much of 1995 was spent on tidying up and clarifying the mass of text options and providing a more streamlined revised rolling text, which nevertheless covers 97 pages, with 1200 pairs of brackets, signifying lack of agreement.
China and France each conducted two nuclear explosions between May and October 1995. Instead of throwing negotiations off course, the tests have re-invigorated public demands for a complete ban. So far this has been reflected in more positive negotiating postures by France, the US and UK and Russia, but little movement from China. China's positions, from advocating so-called peaceful nuclear explosions to wanting gold-plated international verification, are now perceived by many negotiators as the major threat to conclusion of a treaty.
The principal developments during 1995 were on scope, verification and duration of the treaty. First exceptions for safety tests were dropped, then low yield thresholds and hydronuclear testing were abandoned, as the US, UK, Russia and France came to support a zero yield comprehensive ban, favoured by the majority of other states. There is near agreement on an international monitoring system and allocation of costs, with finalisation of a primary seismic network of 50 stations. The US dropped its 'easy exit' proposal to allow withdrawal after ten years, but the US, UK and France linked their support for a fully comprehensive ban with an interpretation of supreme national interest which would allow them to leave the treaty if they deemed testing of their nuclear weapons to be absolutely essential in the future.
The NPT Principles and Objectives, agreed by 174 states carried the commitment to conclude a CTBT 'no later than 1996'. For this to be feasible in view of the CD calendar, negotiations would have to be concluded by June 1996. Attempts to delay until the end of the year could risk losing the treaty altogether. The most effective way to accelerate negotiations at this stage would be for one or a few states to submit a clean draft text around February, thereby enabling attention to be focused on the crucial outstanding issues, including entry into force, scope, on-site inspections and the executive council.
If the CTBT is to become a reality in 1996, already acknowledged differences of interest will have to be challenged and resolved. Such pressure on obdurate positions is a necessary part of any negotiating endgame, and needs to be catalysed as constructively as possible by an effective draft text. If the CD continues to move at the pace of the slowest or seeks to avoid the confrontations of the endgame early in 1996, it could let the CTBT slip from our grasp altogether.