Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)

CTBT Article XIV Conference, November 11-13, 2001

High Level CTBT Meeting "Successful" despite US Boycott

By Rebecca Johnson, The Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy

The Conference on Facilitating the Entry into Force of the CTBT closed on Tuesday November 13, 2001 after unanimously adopting its final declaration. The declaration, which had been negotiated over many months in Vienna, highlighted the importance of the CTBT for non-proliferation and international security, stressing that the conduct of nuclear explosions "constitutes a serious threat to global efforts towards nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation". The Declaration called on all states that have not yet signed or ratified the Treaty to do so as soon as possible. Pending entry into force, all were enjoined to maintain the current moratoria on nuclear testing.

The Conference (known also as the Article XIV Conference, after the entry-into-force provision in the CTBT), was postponed from September 25. It was opened on November 11 by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who said "If anyone thinks that [the CTBT and the Conference] have been overshadowed or marginalised by the events of 11 September and their aftermath… those events should have made it clear to everyone that we cannot afford further proliferation of nuclear weapons." Annan concluded, telling the meeting "we have a fleeting opportunity to render this troubled world a safer place, free of the threat of nuclear weapons. We must not let it pass."

Ambassador Olga Pellicer, speaking on behalf of the Conference President, Miguel Marín Bosch, Deputy Foreign Minister of Mexico, told an end-of-conference press briefing that the meeting had been "a success, because of high level attendance, more than 50 Foreign Ministers all of whom reiterated their support for the CTBT and its verification system."

The CTBT Conference, which ran for two and a half days, was attended by 108 states which have signed the Treaty and a small number of observers and non-governmental organisations. Of the 80 national or group statements made in support of the test ban treaty, some 50 were made by Foreign Ministers or equivalent senior government officials. The United States, however, was conspicuously absent. During the three months prior to the meeting, some 13 additional states had ratified the CTBT, bringing the total number of ratifiers to 87. On the last day of the conference, Libya, which refused to vote in favour of the Treaty in 1996 and therefore attended the Article XIV Conference as an observer, announced that it had decided to accede and would be signed the Treaty forthwith.

Press coverage on Monday hooked stories about the CTBT Conference on the US boycott. Thus, a conference held in the shadow of the high level UN General Assembly debate among state presidents and foreign ministers, the war against terrorism, and a further plane crash in New York, was given unexpected visibility through the actions of the United States, whose boycott had been intended to convey that it regarded the CTBT as irrelevant.

Just a week earlier, the United States had shocked the UN First Committee (Security and Disarmament) by forcing a vote on a simple procedural decision to retain the CTBT on the UN General Assembly agenda next year. Such decisions are usually treated as formalities and sent forward on the basis of consensus, regardless of whether a government is for or against the subject. After forcing the vote, the United States was the sole country to oppose. A US representative explained that he asked for the vote because his country "did not support the CTBT", a treaty that President Clinton signed with John F. Kennedy's pen on September 24 1996. All others voted in favour, including India, which voted against the CTBT in the UN General Assembly when it was adopted in September 1996.

The United States failed to inform the UN Department for Disarmament Affairs or the CTBT Organisation in Vienna of its decision to boycott the CTBT Conference until the last possible moment, despite the presence of Secretary of State Colin Powell and other senior officials at other meetings in the UN over the same time period. After the CTBT Conference opened on Sunday November 11, Rick Grenell, a US State Department Official, confirmed "We're just not going to engage".

In keeping with diplomatic tradition, few statements criticised the United States directly, though some expressed 'regret' at its deliberate absence; privately many - most notably from the US' own allies in Europe and Asia - were furious at this latest example of US contempt for multilateral treaties and arms control. An earlier announcement (August 21, 2001) by Washington that it would withhold support for, and not to participate in, some of the activities by the CTBTO not related to the International Monitoring System (IMS), was likewise derided as petty and unbecoming of a major power.

In general, the statements emphasised the importance of the CTBT to international security, non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament and supported the work of the CTBTO Preparatory Commission and its Executive Secretary, Wolfgang Hoffmann in establishing an effective verification system. Many related the CTBT to commitments in the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), particularly the NPT agreements of May 2000, where the United States had joined consensus. Almost all the statements underlined the necessity of maintaining the moratorium against nuclear tests, currently observed by all five nuclear weapon states and, after they each conducted a series of nuclear explosions in May 1998, by India and Pakistan, though neither has yet signed the CTBT. Amongst all the positive statements about the CTBT, there appeared to be few new or concrete proposals for facilitating entry into force. Few even wanted to name the 13 states whose failure to sign and/or ratify now impedes the CTBT's entry into force. Like the governments, the NGOs in their statement to the Conference stressed the vital importance of preventing any future testing, for fear of destroying the test ban norm and setting off a "dangerous international action-reaction cycle of military and nuclear confrontation". The NGOs proposed that the Conference "should commit its participants to condemn any future testing and call upon governments, businesses and people from around the world to respond to any future test by withholding military sales, trade and other business support from the testing countries." To ensure that the testing moratorium is maintained, it would be necessary for potential violators to realise that the penalties and costs would be significant.

Two developments were particularly noteworthy:

Russia proposed additional confidence-building measures with the United States after entry into force, referring to "the possibility to develop additional verification measures for nuclear test ranges going far beyond the Treaty provisions… [which] could include the exchange of geological data and results of certain experiments, installation of additional sensors, and other measures."
On the negative side, possibly responding to the US lack of commitment and announced withholding of funds, a few states, notably Brazil and Argentina, raised questions about their financial contributions to the CTBTO, particularly the "burden" of verification costs if the treaty was to remain in limbo.

This brief, preliminary report, written as the Conference ended, will be expanded with further analysis and published on our website and in Disarmament Diplomacy over the next couple of weeks.

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