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ACRONYM Reports

A Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty: Signed but not Sealed

1996: Meeting the Deadline

Structure of Negotiations

The NTB Committee was reconvened on January 23, 1996, under a new Chair, Jaap Ramaker, the very experienced ambassador for The Netherlands. Its mandate, which had been crafted by Japan's former ambassador to Geneva, Yoshitomo Tanaka, in 1993, was re-adopted, as follows:

MANDATE FOR AN AD HOC COMMITTEE

Under Agenda Item 1

"Nuclear Test Ban"
(first adopted at the 666^th Plenary meeting of the CD on 25 January 1994, CD/1238)

In the exercise of its responsibilities as the sole multilateral disarmament negotiating forum of the international community, the Conference on Disarmament decides to re-establish an Ad Hoc Committee under item 1 of its agenda entitled "Nuclear Test Ban", and to give priority to its work.

The Conference directs the Ad Hoc Committee to negotiate intensively a universal and multilaterally and effectively verifiable comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty, which would contribute effectively to the prevention of the proliferation of nuclear weapons in all its aspects, to the process of nuclear disarmament and therefore to the enhancement of international peace and security.

Pursuant to its mandate, the Ad Hoc Committee will take into account all existing proposals and future initiatives, as well as the work of the Ad Hoc Group of Scientific Experts to Consider International Co-operative Measures to Detect and Identify Seismic Events. The Conference requests the Ad Hoc Committee to establish the necessary working groups in order to carry forward effectively this negotiating mandate; these should include at least two working groups, one on verification and one on legal and institutional issues, which should be established in the initial stage of the negotiation, and any others which the Committee may subsequently decide upon.

The Ad Hoc Committee will report to the Conference on Disarmament on the progress of its work before the conclusion of the 1996 session.

For the first few months of negotiations, two working groups were convened, as in the previous two years. Working Group 1 on Verification was chaired by Grigori Berdennikov of the Russian Federation. Working Group 2 on Legal and Institutional Issues was chaired by Mounir Zahran of Egypt. Friends of the Chair were appointed or re-appointed on some of the more complicated or contentious issues. The P-5's weekly meetings assumed greater prominence as they attempted to thrash out the difficult issues between them, covering scope, PNEs, verification (especially on-site inspections) and entry into force.

WHO'S WHO IN 1996

Nuclear Test Ban Committee
Chair: Ambassador Jaap Ramaker (Netherlands)

Working Group 1 on Verification
Chair: Ambassador Grigori Berdennikov (Russia)

Technical Verification: Peter Marshall (UK)
On-Site Inspections: Ambassador Mark Moher (Canada)
IMS: Patrick Cole (Australia)
IDC: Ralph Alewine (USA)
Associated Measures: Richard Ekwall (Sweden)

Working Group 2 on Legal and Institutional Issues
Chair: Ambassador Mounir Zahran (Egypt)

Executive Council: Ambassador Nacer Benjelloun-Touimi (Morocco)
Entry into Force: Ambassador Antonio de Icaza (Mexico)
Funding: Yukiya Amano (Japan)
Preamble: Marshall Brown (USA)

Note: The Working Groups were only convened between January and May. Subsequently, many of the Friends of the Chair identified above were retained as 'moderators', to continue to coordinate agreement on their issue and report directly to Ramaker, as Chair of the NTB Committee. Changes or additions to appointments after May were as follows:

Preamble and Review: Ambassador Mounir Zahran (Egypt)
Host Country Agreement: Ambassador Stephen Ledogar (USA)
Preparatory Commission: Ambassador Wolfgang Hoffmann (Germany)
[subsequently, Don Sinclair (Canada)]
CTBTO: Ambassador Benjelloun-Touimi (Morocco)
IMS: Ambassador Richard Starr (Australia)

Negotiating in the CD

As the NTB Committee took up work in January on the rolling text and its 1200 brackets of disputed language, concepts and punctuation, it was clear that the form and conduct of negotiations would have to change if there was to be any chance of concluding a CTBT in 1996, as called for in the UN General Assembly resolution 50/65 which had been adopted by consensus on December 12, 1995. Ramaker began by focusing attention on a cluster of key issues, starting with OSI.

Three speeches during the first week, from the United States, India and Pakistan, were noticeable for representing the dominant themes of the year's negotiations. John Holum, the Director of ACDA, made a statement to the first plenary clearly aimed at recovering the ground gained by the zero yield decision and then lost when the DOE announced a programme of underground subcritical tests in Nevada. He was at pains to emphasise the real constraints which a CTBT would impose on the US weapons programmes: "Without nuclear testing the nuclear weapon states will not be able to pursue confidently such technologies as the nuclear-explosion-pumped X-ray laser, the so-called nuclear shotgun, enhanced electromagnetic pulse weapons, microwave weapons and enhanced-radiation weapons…The true-zero test ban will also place out of reach new 'mini-nuke' and 'micro-nuke' concepts - technologies designed to use nuclear explosive yields in small amounts…By fending off such developments, the CTBT will help make nuclear war less likely, and sustain today's trend toward smaller nuclear arsenals with shrinking roles in national defences."

In the first week, India tabled three working papers with proposals linking the preamble and entry into force with commitment to a timetable for nuclear disarmament, as well as explicit language on preventing qualitative developments or advanced new weapons systems. India's Ambassador, Arundhati Ghose, made an ironic allusion to the hysteria of US and Indian press over rumours of nuclear test preparations at Pokharan, remarking that 1996 was "a testing time for all of us". She urged the start of "negotiations on a time bound programme for the elimination of nuclear weapons early this year". Underlining the necessity to make the CTBT a "step to the road to nuclear disarmament rather than into a cul-de-sac", Ghose said that India wanted a 'good treaty': "the CTBT must be an integral step in the process of nuclear disarmament. Developing new warheads or refining existing ones after the CTBT is in place, using innovative technologies, would be as contrary to the spirit of the CTBT as the NPT is to the spirit of non-proliferation."

Ambassador Munir Akram also chose the first week to set out Pakistan's table. He reiterated opposition to NTM and argued for a CTBT scope with "no exceptions ... for any reason". Citing a fundamental objective of the CTBT to be the prevention of further qualitative development, he underlined that "concepts such as zero yield and no-yield tests" must be "compatible with the CTBT's fundamental aims". He lamented that some of the nuclear weapon states "while reducing their nuclear arsenals quantitatively, are upgrading them qualitatively" and emphasised the need for an ad hoc committee on nuclear disarmament, to negotiate a "phased reduction and eventual elimination of nuclear weapons within a specific time-frame". Pointedly, he warned that "the treaty we build [here] must not be such that it will transform those who supported the CTBT in the past into its opponents."

The NTB Committee and Friends of the Chair settled into a routine of meetings and consultations, which did not appear to clear many brackets from the heavily laden rolling text. The P-5 meetings intensified in frequency and content, as the diplomats from the NWS attempted to put together a package by trading key positions and issues amongst themselves. In February, seeking to accelerate the negotiations by demonstrating possible solutions and areas of convergence, Iran and Australia each tabled a clean draft or 'model' text.

Draft treaties from Iran and Australia

The Iranian Foreign Minister Dr Ali Akbar Velayati stressed that his purpose was to help the CD "to perceive a middle ground - a package...which may constitute a compromise amongst the various and, at times, contradictory positions." Michael Costello, Secretary of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, emphasised the urgency of moving toward conclusion, and offered the model treaty to "demonstrate tangibly that a CTBT...is indeed within reach". Both drafts synthesised the areas already substantially agreed, but there were noted similarities in their conceptual approach to resolving some of the most difficult issues such as entry into force, on-site inspections (OSI) and the composition of the Executive Council. The fundamental difference was on scope. Australia reproduced its own working paper on scope, WP.222, originated in March 1995, with the understanding of zero yield adopted by the US, France and the UK in August. Iran's draft reintroduced the prohibition against nuclear weapon tests, despite its withdrawal earlier that month by Indonesia. On the preamble, Iran retained a commitment to nuclear disarmament in a time-bound framework, which Australia eschewed in favour of language referring to a 'systematic process' leading to nuclear disarmament.

Both attempted to balance early implementation of the treaty with its political credibility by proposing that entry into force should be based on accession by a particular list of states, including the P-5, India, Israel and Pakistan, but providing a mechanism to prevent any particular country on the list being able to block the treaty altogether. On OSI both proposed a two phase process with quick access for the first, less intrusive phase, and a more rigorous decision-making procedure for any subsequent, fuller inspection. Australia permitted any kind of information to be used to back an OSI request, but also considered ways of making national technical information more accessible to the international community to meet non-aligned concerns about bias. Iran would base an OSI request solely on data from the IMS, but left a small opening for NTM as supplementary information.

China and India objected to the draft texts, with Ghose stressing that they were no more than "national positions on what would constitute a balanced text" and China warning against an artificial climate of urgency. However, most states welcomed the initiatives, if not all their proposed solutions. They were seen as a very useful, perhaps necessary, mechanism to pave the way for a Chair's text. Having let the Iranian and Australian drafts test the waters, Ramaker decided that it would be premature to introduce a clean Chair's draft text at this point.

March 28: Chair's 'Outline'

Choosing instead a two-stage process, on March 28 Ramaker tabled a working paper with an 'Outline of a draft Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty'. This was structured as a treaty, with a preamble and 17 articles, but without being cleaned of brackets. Where states' individual proposals were hard fought, such as on scope, Ramaker presented the heavily-bracketed rolling text, together with an indication of a clean formulation that had attracted wide support. In other cases, such as the composition of the Executive Council, the working paper offered text developed by a Friend of the Chair after consultations with the delegations.

Four bracketed articles were put at the end, covering China's proposals on the peaceful use of nuclear energy, PNEs, security assurances and the relation of the treaty to other international agreements. Their addition in this way was a strong indicator of the general view that these proposals should not remain in the treaty, while at the same time meeting China's insistence that its decision on these issues could not be pre-empted by another representative - even the Chair. In some cases, such as PNEs, China's proposal was opposed altogether; other articles, such as security assurances, may have been supported in principle by many, but not within the context of the CTBT.

Ramaker highlighted six outstanding issues: the preamble; scope; the composition of the Executive Council; some of the functions of the international data centre (IDC), particularly the level of information and analysis it should provide to states parties; on-site inspections; and entry into force. Ramaker gave the CD members the six weeks of the intersessional break to consider the structure and various options. Two weeks after the CD resumed in mid-May, he tabled a clean draft treaty.

May 28: Chair's First Draft

India, Pakistan, Russia and China had protested when Ramaker announced on May 22 that he would shortly be tabling a draft treaty from the Chair, but recognising the time-table required by the UN General Assembly resolution, no-one called the Chair's text premature when it was presented on May 28. Ramaker also sought to reassure by stressing that his draft was to facilitate "the last and final stage of negotiations". There were a few comments that it overly represented the 'Western perspective', while at the same time the United States and Britain complained that the verification provisions leant too far towards the positions of G-21 states. India raised particular objections that none of its positions had been incorporated, while other non-aligned countries pointed to provisions which they felt could provide some leverage to keep the NWS up to their obligations. Two particular issues took centre stage as a result of the Chair's text: entry into force and on-site inspections.

During the next month, meetings of the NTB Committee went late into the night, but without achieving much. Zahran, coordinating negotiations on the preamble, managed to obtain agreement for India's proposal that the Review Conference should also ensure that the objectives and purposes of the preamble were being realised. That was the only language proposed by India in January that was accepted into the treaty. Having dismissed India's insistence on commitment (or at least reference) to a time-table for nuclear disarmament as a tactic to prepare the ground for refusing to sign, the Western nuclear powers barely engaged with attempts by India and others to strengthen the preambular commitment to nuclear disarmament and the prevention of qualitative improvements or development of advanced new nuclear weapon systems.

The May 28 draft caused a significant shift in the negotiations. Although no formal decision was ever taken to replace the rolling text, Ramaker's text became the focus of work from then on. Despite his assurance that the draft had not been tabled with a "take it or leave it attitude", multilateral negotiations ceased to play a relevant role after that. Under his auspices as Chair, however, Ramaker convened 15 or so key states to discuss the most difficult issues. The group included the P-5, India, Israel and Pakistan, and ambassadors from Japan, Mexico, Egypt, Morocco, Germany, Canada, Indonesia and Australia, which had acted as moderators or Friends of the Chair on the major issues.

Because of their 'treaty-breaking' importance to the US and China, the related issues of OSI and NTM became the main focus of the P-5's side-bar meetings. The entry into force of the treaty was beginning to cause anxiety among many, especially in light of the strident media debate (almost entirely pro-nuclear) in India. Nevertheless, faced with a seemingly non-negotiable demand by Britain, China and Russia (as well as Pakistan and Egypt) for a provision that would bind the 'five plus three' declared and undeclared nuclear weapon states, few seemed prepared to challenge. The United States was so obsessed with getting its way on OSI that it seemed unable to keep its eye on any other ball, even though it would have preferred a more flexible provision on entry into force.

On June 20, Ghose stated categorically that India would not sign unless its demands on qualitative development and nuclear disarmament were addressed in the treaty. She sets the stakes high: "India cannot accept any restraints on its capability if other countries remain unwilling to accept the obligation to eliminate their nuclear weapons." By indicating that India would not block consensus on the CTBT unless it were coerced by a binding condition, such as in the May 28 text, Ghose conveyed an unmistakable warning that India was preparing to exercise its veto unless the entry into force provision was made less specific. She characterised article XIV of the Chair's draft as a violation of sovereignty and stated that India "would not accept any language in the treaty text which would affect our sovereign right to decide, in the light of our supreme national interest, whether we should or should not accede to such a treaty."

On that same day, Ramaker offered a complicated, four-stage entry-into-force article, hoping to appease Britain, China and Russia while removing the risk of a permanent Indian veto on the treaty. It came too late. Britain and Russia immediately rejected the proposal and no-one else was prepared to give it serious consideration. When Ramaker tabled his revised text on June 28, it contained a list of 44 states, including the P-5, India, Israel and Pakistan, whose accession was made a condition of the treaty taking legal effect. The die was cast.

June 28: 'final' text

On the last day of the second session, Ramaker tabled his revised version of the May 28 Chair's text, this time telling the NTB Committee that negotiations had been concluded. Despite its misgivings about the implications of article XIV on entry into force, the Clinton administration decided in early July to support Ramaker's text as it was, hoping to deter any further negotiations, which they feared could cause the treaty to unravel. The United States then secured public declarations of support for the draft treaty from Britain, France, Russia, Indonesia and others.

When the CD resumed negotiations on July 29, the atmosphere was tense. Notwithstanding its position against any re-opening of the treaty, the US agreed to China's demand for further discussions on the decision-making procedure for OSI. During earlier negotiations among the P-5, Britain, France and Russia had been prepared to accept authorisation of an OSI by a three-fifths majority, providing China accepted the permissibility of national technical information in presenting a request for an inspection. The United States had continued to insist that requiring the Executive Council to make a decision before an inspection could go ahead was already more stringent than it was comfortable with, and that it would not go higher than the simple majority in Ramaker's text. Having finally conceded on PNEs, this was a make or break issue for China. Beijing calculated the balance on the Executive Council and considered that 30 out of the 51 members was the minimum assurance it needed that the United States and its allies did not have the automatic weight to vote for an OSI request irrespective of the supporting evidence. Beijing wanted two-thirds, but proposed three-fifths as a bearable compromise. With China's signature on the treaty hanging in the balance, the US finally accepted a decision-making majority of 'at least 30 affirmative votes of members of the Executive Council'.

This was presented together with some procedural modifications in Ramaker's absolutely final text in working paper 330/Rev.2 on August 14. Though the last minute agreement secured China's backing, India was furious that the June 28 text could be amended at China's behest while no-one was prepared to address India's own proposals on disarmament and entry into force. Other non-aligned countries had also tried to re-open negotiations on the preamble and entry into force, but were told that negotiations were closed. Frustrated at their inability to get stronger commitments in the CTBT preamble, 28 of the 30 non-aligned states in the CD proposed a 'Programme of action for the elimination of nuclear weapons', intending this to be a basis for discussions in an ad hoc committee on nuclear disarmament.

When Ramaker sought consensus in the NTB Committee for the August 14 treaty text, India carried out its threat to veto. After blocking adoption of the treaty for several days, India then refused to allow the treaty text to be attached in any way to the NTB Committee report, although the report clearly stated that there had been no consensus. In a last ditch attempt to undermine the credibility of the treaty, India (this time joined by Iran) blocked transmission of the NTB Committee's report to the UN General Assembly, even though it was just "a report shorn of a text...despite an overwhelming majority willing to accept the text, despite perceptions of [its] imperfections"

Publicly recognising that "the CD will not be able to transmit the text of the treaty", Australia decided on August 22 to take it directly to a resumed session of the 51^st UN General Assembly before September 16. Australia's ambassador to the CD, Richard Starr, acknowledged reservations on some aspects of the treaty text, including the entry into force provisions, but said that it was inaccurate to suggest that it was either illegal or coercive [as India had claimed]. The text, he said, was "a workable treaty" with the commitment of the five declared nuclear weapon states. Rather than allow the unadopted CTBT draft to languish in the corner of the CD, Starr announced that Australia would put a resolution to the United Nations for adoption of the treaty. His counterpart in New York, Richard Butler, and 50 co-sponsors lodged the resolution that same day, August 22, at the United Nations in New York.

The United Nations Adopts the Treaty

"This was a treaty sought by ordinary people everywhere and today the power of that universal wish could not be denied."

_{Madeleine Albright, US Ambassador, September 10, 1996.}

On September 9, with 127 co-sponsors, Australia formally proposed in resolution A/50/L.78 that the UN General Assembly adopt the CTBT as finalised in Geneva. Almost all the statements made during the next two days were in support of the treaty, although many spoke of its flaws. Criticism focused on main features:

1. concern that the treaty does not adequately prohibit non-explosive testing or prevent qualitative development;
2. the need for more progress on nuclear disarmament, with references to the G-28 programme of action, timebound framework, or the ICJ judgement;
3. concern about the treaty's entry into force;
4. the distribution of Executive Council seats, which was mainly a vehicle for some of the Arab countries to object to Israel being part of the Middle East and South Asia region.

Before the vote, Pakistan said that while it would support the resolution, it would not sign the treaty until its "regional situation" warranted. India argued that the negotiations had been "skewed" and the treaty would "only succeed in perpetuating a discriminatory status quo". The risk of amendments from either India or (more likely) Iran had been real, but in the end the fact that more than two-thirds of the UN membership had co-sponsored the resolution ensured that any planned stratagems against the treaty came to naught.

When the vote was taken at 4 p.m., the CTBT was endorsed by 158 votes to 3. India, Bhutan and Libya voted against. There were 5 abstentions: Tanzania, Cuba, Syria, Lebanon, Mauritius. These cited the 'deficiencies' of the treaty and their dissatisfaction with the negotiating process. Additionally, 19 countries were diplomatically absent. Of these, several (including a number of co-sponsors and Iraq) were not permitted to vote because their payments to the United Nations were in serious arrears. However, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) was also notably absent from the vote. India's Geneva Ambassador gave a final, angry statement, declaring "that India will never sign this unequal Treaty, not now, nor later. As long as this text contains this article [XIV]...this Treaty will never enter into force."

Summing up the day, US Ambassador Madeleine Albright expressed delight that so many "nations of every size and outlook" had overwhelmingly endorsed "a total ban on nuclear test explosions and other nuclear explosions, of any size, in any place, at any time." Acknowledging that the treaty was "not perfect", Albright argued that it would bring about "greater security...a healthier environment - especially in those regions where further tests might have been conducted - and a giant step closer towards ending a nuclear arms race that has endangered human survival for most of the past half century." She concluded: "Under the CTBT...the so-called vertical proliferation of nuclear armaments should end, and this generation of nuclear weapons will be the last... Overall the CTBT reduces the danger of nuclear war and moves us towards the day when nuclear weapons will be nothing but a memory."

Open for Signature

Opening the CTBT for signature at the United Nations on September 24, UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros Ghali saluted the citizens and those who had "struggled for so long to achieve this treaty." He spoke of the "constant and passionate flow of petitions, appeals, and support from the peoples of the world," and appealed to all signatory states to ensure that they conformed with the purpose of the treaty. Calling the treaty "the longest sought, hardest-fought prize in arms control history", US President Bill Clinton was the first to sign, using the pen with which John F. Kennedy had signed the PTBT in 1963. Clinton described the CTBT as "a giant step forward" that would "help prevent the nuclear powers from developing more advanced and dangerous weapons."

Russia's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yevgeni Primakov, said the treaty "would stimulate a gradual transition to nuclear disarmament." He also warned: "Testing of a nuclear explosive device by any country before the treaty enters into force will cardinally change the international situation, greatly prejudice the treaty itself, and may compel many countries to revise their attitude to it." Foreign Minister Qian Qichen reiterated China's view that a CTBT was "only a first step in the entire process of comprehensive nuclear disarmament" and called for all the major nuclear powers to renounce their policies of nuclear deterrence, commit to no first use of nuclear weapons and give legally binding undertakings not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon countries. China also advocated the withdrawal of nuclear weapons to the home territory of the NWS themselves and pressed for the commencement of negotiations leading to a convention on the complete prohibition and thorough destruction of nuclear weapons. The French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hervé de Charette, called the CTBT a "major turning point in the world's strategic balances" and said it opened the way to "a more stable, safer world which will cease to be haunted by the twin dangers of the nuclear arms race and the proliferation of these weapons." Britain's Foreign Secretary, Malcolm Rifkind, unenthusiastic to the end, remarked that the CTBT showed that "we can, by acting with determination and by making sacrifices, reap the benefits of the end of the Cold War."

By the end of the first week, some 70 countries had signed the CTBT, including Israel and Iran. By March 7, 1997, when Geneva finally handed the treaty over to Vienna, the CTBT had 142 signatories.

© 1997 The Acronym Institute.