ACRONYM Reports

A Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty: Signed but not Sealed

ACRONYM Report No.10, May 1997

Introduction

In 1954, India's Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, called for a worldwide comprehensive test ban treaty. The intention was to end the nuclear arms race, in which the United States and Soviet Union had just been joined by Britain. The leaders of the nuclear testing countries were also forced to the negotiating table by the growing environmental and health concerns about fallout from the atmospheric nuclear tests. Unable to agree on verification and inspections, Kennedy, Khrushchev and Macmillan settled for a Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) in 1963. By banning only explosions in the atmosphere, outer space and under water, the three powers agreed that verification could be by their own national technical means (NTM) and would not have to rely on an international regime or intrusive inspections. They were also able to continue the nuclear arms race by intensifying their underground nuclear testing programmes. France and China, which have never signed the PTBT, conducted tests in the atmosphere until 1974 and 1980 respectively.

Throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, the CTBT remained a central objective of nuclear disarmament and arms control campaigners. The preamble of the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) reiterated the PTBT's pledge to 'to seek to achieve the discontinuance of all test explosions of nuclear weapons for all time and to continue negotiations to this end.' Bilateral negotiations between the US and USSR resulted in agreements limiting the size of an underground nuclear explosion to 150 kilotons. The 1974 Threshold Test Ban Treaty (TTBT) and the 1976 Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty (PNET) set this limit for weapons tests and 'peaceful nuclear explosions' (PNE) respectively. Tripartite talks between the US, USSR and the UK, initiated by President Carter in 1977, foundered in 1980 when the pro-nuclear administrations of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher took power in the United States and Britain. At the Fourth Review Conference of the NPT in 1990, the non-aligned states, led by Mexico, called for a firm commitment to open negotiations on a CTBT. The nuclear weapon states' refusal to do this prevented agreement on a final declaration from that NPT Review Conference.

As NPT parties began preparing for 1995, when the decision on extending the Non-Proliferation Treaty would be taken, the lack of a CTBT became the focus of widespread criticism over inadequate implementation of the nuclear powers' obligations under article VI. In January 1991, 118 states parties to the PTBT participated in an Amendment Conference with the purpose of adding 'underground' to the prohibited environments, which would have converted the PTBT to a comprehensive ban. The US, UK and USSR opposed, so the initiative never stood a chance. Nevertheless, is contributed to the pressure for a CTBT, particularly one that would include France and China, which were not parties to the PTBT.

The Cold War was ending, with the fragmentation of the Soviet Union into smaller nation states. Kazak nationalists and anti nuclear campaigners blocked all further testing at the primary Soviet test site, Semipalatinsk in Kazakstan. In October 1991, making political virtue of necessity, General-Secretary Gorbachev called a moratorium on Soviet testing. The French President, François Mitterrand, followed in April 1992, giving renewed impetus to initiatives in the US Congress to halt testing. On October 2, 1992, President Bush reluctantly signed into law a nine month moratorium on US testing which had been passed as an amendment to FY1993 Energy and Water Appropriations Bill by the US Senate. This also instructed the US President to submit a plan for achieving a multilateral ban on all nuclear weapon tests by September 30, 1996. Because Britain's tests were conducted at the Nevada Test Site under US auspices, this legislation forced a moratorium on the British government too. When Boris Yeltsin and Bill Clinton took over the presidencies of Russia and the US they confirmed their predecessors' moratoria.

All five of the nuclear weapon states (NWS) joined 156 countries in adopting a consensus resolution in the United Nations General Assembly in 1993, which endorsed a mandate for the Conference on Disarmament to negotiate a CTBT. The Ad Hoc Committee on a Nuclear Test Ban (NTB), which had discussed this issue for 23 years in one form or another, was finally given the go-ahead in January 1994 to begin real negotiations.

Nuclear Test Ban Committee, 1994-1995

The first chair of the NTB Committee was Ambassador Miguel Marín Bosch of Mexico, a long time test ban advocate. He wanted the CTBT to be achieved before the NPT Review and Extension Conference in April-May 1995, in accordance with policy statements from the G-21 Group of Non-Aligned States. However, the NWS had other ideas. In particular, France and China wanted to avoid any possibility of conclusion before 1996. China was in the middle of a testing programme and France wanted to keep the option open pending election of a new President in May 1995.

The first year's negotiations therefore prepared the ground by examining the range of technical and political questions pertinent to a comprehensive test ban. By the close of the CD in September 1994, it had produced a 95-page draft text in the loose form of a treaty. The draft was encumbered with over a thousand pairs of brackets enclosing concepts, words and punctuation that had been proposed but were not yet agreed. This document, attached to the 1994 NTB Committee Report, was referred to as the 'rolling text' and became the basis for further negotiations.

In accordance with the CD principle of rotation among the three groups, the Ambassador of Poland, Ludwik Dembinski, took the Chair of the NTB Committee in 1995. Negotiations continued apace, in the shadow of the NPT Conference and its surrounding politics.

During 1994 and much of 1995, the NWS had sought to protect their nuclear weapon programmes by means of exemptions in the treaty. France and the UK had wanted to keep a provision for safety tests 'in exceptional circumstances'. The Clinton Administration, which had decided against a 1 kt threshold in 1993, had defined 'zero' as anything up to 1.8 kg (4 lb.), the maximum yield for a 'one point safety test'. Since the US Department of Energy (DOE) had been prepared only to provide a ten year assurance of the reliability of the US arsenals, the United States proposed a ten year opt-out or 'easy exit' clause. There was overwhelming opposition to such a provision, which would have undermined the indefinite and universal character of the treaty. Not wanting to risk the CTBT, which was a key foreign policy objective of the Clinton administration, the US delegation withdrew its ten year opt-out proposal at the beginning of 1995. After dropping their proposal for safety tests in April 1995, the UK and France became more concerned to get agreement among the P-5 for a threshold that would allow low yield tests to continue.

There was general dissatisfaction with the US-defined limit of 1.8 kg, as it was believed that US technology was sophisticated enough to gain considerable design information at this level through hydronuclear experiments (HNE). Russia wanted up to 10 tons and the UK would accept 40-50 kg, while France reportedly favoured a threshold of 100-300 tons. Officially China opposed any threshold whatsoever, and had submitted language for the treaty scope that would prohibit 'any nuclear weapon test which releases nuclear energy'. China's strategy on scope was altogether different from the other NWS. Making a distinction (which others denied) between nuclear explosions for military and civilian purposes, China proposed that PNEs should not be prohibited, but rather should be subject to rigorous authorisation and verification procedures.

On May 12, 1995, the NPT was indefinitely extended, as part of a 'politically binding package' of three decisions. One of these, on Principles and Objectives of Nuclear Non Proliferation and Disarmament, contained a paragraph calling for a CTBT 'no later than 1996'. It continued: 'Pending the entry into force of a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the nuclear weapon states should exercise utmost restraint.' On May 15, China conducted a further nuclear explosion. On June 13, the newly elected President Chirac announced the resumption of French testing. The prospect of France breaking its moratorium, imposed in 1992, shook the negotiations and caused an international outcry. Though the upsurge of public opposition targeted French testing in the Pacific in particular, it also conveyed a strong sentiment against all nuclear testing and for nuclear disarmament in general.

Warned away from anything controversial in the run-up to the NPT Conference, the US Pentagon after May 1995 re-opened the threshold debate in Washington, urging testing up to 500 tons. The leadership in the DOE and the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) opposed. France surprised many by being the first to announce that it was abandoning its push for a threshold ban. Declaring to the CD on August 10 that it envisaged a 'truly comprehensive prohibition', France endorsed the Australian scope language prohibiting 'any nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion.'

A day later, President Clinton committed the US to 'a true zero yield ban' on all nuclear explosions. With this announcement, Clinton resolved the heated threshold debate amongst his government agencies. Since the P-5 were locked in disagreement over permitted levels, and China was adamant that it would not accept the US definition of 'zero = 4 lb.', the choice had been between going to true zero, as the non-nuclear countries wanted, or taking the level much higher, as desired by the other NWS. The problem was: how high? A report, commissioned by the DOE from 14 nuclear and security experts,concluded that sub-kiloton tests would be of marginal utility in ensuring stockpile safety. Combined with the public and international outrage against the French resumption of testing, this convinced Clinton that the wiser choice would be a real zero. Whether the French announcement had meant complete zero or only a dropping of tens or hundreds of tons to a hydronuclear limit of a few kilograms, it would have looked foolish to have backed down, and so on August 16, France confirmed the true zero yield. The UK followed on September 14, adopting both the zero yield concept and the US and French interpretation relating 'supreme national interests' to stockpile safety and reliability.

By the end of the CD's 1995 session, Dembinski was able to present an updated rolling text. It covered 97 pages, with over 1200 pairs of brackets around disputed language. Significant political breakthroughs had been made on scope, verification and duration of the treaty. The US had dropped its ten year opt-out clause; then the UK and France withdrew the special provision for safety tests; and finally, France, the US and UK resolved the threshold dispute by committing to a true zero ban. However, Russia was playing hard to get, and China had not moved on PNEs or general scope language. Substantial agreement was obtained on the international monitoring system (IMS), including the location of seismic, radionuclide and hydroacoustic stations. The rolling text had been cleaned of many redundancies and contradictions, but little further progress had been made on the hard political choices concerning on-site inspections (OSI), the implementing organisation (particularly the composition of the Executive Council), and entry into force. Little had been done on the preamble, and no further decisions had been taken on China's desire to include articles covering security assurances, no-first-use, the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and the relationship of this treaty with other agreements (principally intended to establish the legitimacy of PNEs).

This report summarises the CTBT negotiations from January to September 1996.