ACRONYM Reports

A Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty: Signed but not Sealed

ACRONYM Report No.10, May 1997

Executive Summary

Negotiations for a comprehensive test ban treaty (CTBT) opened at the Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva in January 1994. The CTBT was concluded in the CD in August 1996 and adopted by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on September 10, 1996 by 158 votes to 3, with 5 abstentions. ACRONYM 10 reviews the final year of the negotiations and assesses the effectiveness of the resulting Treaty and prospects for its implementation.

Despite a very difficult final stage of negotiations, the CTBT was achieved by the deadline set by the UN General Assembly and the US Congress. To date it has been signed by 142 countries and ratified by two. The five declared nuclear weapon states and Israel signed in the first week.
From the 1950s on, a CTBT was sought for three main purposes: to curb proliferation; to end the contamination and destruction of fragile environments from nuclear explosions; and to halt the arms race by preventing new and modernised weapons from being added to the nuclear arsenals.
The 1996 CTBT provides a zero yield ban on all nuclear explosions, including hydronuclear experiments and 'peaceful' nuclear explosions (PNE). It will create an important norm against nuclear testing and will prevent further environmental harm.
The nuclear weapon states have ensured that the CTBT will play a less effective role in nuclear disarmament than originally conceived. The Treaty will discourage but not preclude the manufacture of crude nuclear bombs. It will significantly constrain, but cannot wholly prevent, the development of new warheads by technologically advanced powers or the modernisation of existing weapons to suit changing doctrines of nuclear warfighting. Sophisticated research and laboratory testing capabilities being put in place by the US 'science-based Stockpile Stewardship' programme and similar plans in other nuclear weapon states go well beyond any reasonable requirements of safety, reliability and the maintenance of existing stockpiles.
The planned US programme of subcritical tests, due to start in June 1997, sets a dangerous precedent and could create compliance ambiguities and verification complications. In line with the overall intention and spirit of the CTBT, the US needs to reconsider its position on subcritical tests and the cost, size, role and sophistication of its approach to stockpile stewardship.
Britain, Russia and China insisted on a rigid provision to make the Treaty's entry into force conditional on accession by all the nuclear capable states. Of the 44 states whose ratification is required in article XIV, 41 have signed. India, which vetoed the Treaty in the CD and voted against it in the United Nations, declared it would never sign. Pakistan's signature depends on India joining the Treaty. North Korea has also not signed. This leaves the CTBT with an inherent weakness: if it never enters into force it may lose its political authority. This could weaken the funding commitments for the verification regime and encourage proliferators to cheat.
All states bear responsibility for furthering the aims of the CTBT and its full implementation, so that it becomes a credible component of the nuclear non-proliferation regime. The CTBT should not be circumvented by technology nor held hostage to all-or-nothing concepts of disarmament.
The CTBT's entry into force will depend on three factors: irreversible nuclear arms reduction, greater regional security in South Asia, and further progress on nuclear disarmament.
Prompt ratification of the CTBT will be important. In particular, early ratification by the nuclear weapon states will remove uncertainties about their long term intentions, send a strong signal to the hold-outs, and increase pressure on India, Pakistan and North Korea to join. The new Labour government in Britain would have overwhelming support for ratifying the CTBT in its first term. In view of the difficulties over ratification of arms control treaties in the US and Russia, it would be desirable for Britain, France and China to take the lead.