Test Ban Treaty

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  Disarmament and Related Treaties

  Prepared in cooperation with the Kingdom of the Netherlands

  • United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs(Author)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • United Nations

    (Publisher)

  Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty 19 Further recognizing that an end to all such nuclear explosions will thus constitute a meaningful step in the realization of a systematic process to achieve nuclear disarmament, Convinced that the most effective way to achieve an end to nuclear testing is through the conclusion of a universal and internationally and effectively verifiable comprehensive nuclear-test-ban treaty, which has long been one of the highest priority objectives of the international community in the field of disarmament and non-proliferation, Noting the aspirations expressed by the Parties to the 1963 Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water to seek to achieve the discontinuance of all test explosions of nuclear weapons for all time, Noting also the views expressed that this Treaty could contribute to the protection of the environment, Affi rming the purpose of attracting the adherence of all States to this Treaty and its objective to 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, Have agreed as follows: 20 Disarmament and Related Treaties Article I Basic Obligations 1. Each State Party undertakes not to carry out any nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion, and to prohibit and prevent any such nuclear explosion at any place under its jurisdiction or control. 2. Each State Party undertakes, furthermore, to refrain from causing, encouraging, or in any way participating in the carrying out of any nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion. Article II The Organization A. General Provisions 1.

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  Nuclear Weapons, Scientists, And The Post-cold War Challenge: Selected Papers On Arms Control

  Selected Papers on Arms Control

  • Sidney D Drell(Author)
  • 2007(Publication Date)
  • World Scientific

    (Publisher)

  Most notably, but not uniquely, this means the US. The IAEA or its successor must also oversee a coordinated effort involving all imponant supplier nations so it can assess heir actions. This will require strong political will on the pan of the supplier nations who will have to put their interest in the effort against proliferation above their interest in comercia exports and profits. BANNING TESTS I The non-nuclear nations accepted verification protocols and trade restrictions when they renounced the effort to join the nuclear club. The nuclear nations, for their part, have a special obligation to honor the commit- ments under this treaty to reduce its discriminatory nature bemeen themselves 40 SPECIAL ISSUE 1997 121 and the non-nuclear nations. Toward this end the nuclear nations rook an enormously imponanr step at the UN on September 24,1996, with the signing of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treary (CTBT). This treaty bans all nuclear explo- sions by its signatories-of any size, at any time and in any place. It has already been signed by more than 140 of the 187 nations-including all five declared nuclear powers. The treaty contains extensive provisions to verify compliance with its restrictions, based on a worldwide network of seismic monitoring stations, satellites and other technologies. A formal process of on-site challenge inspections will also be estab- lished in accord with US insistence. The CTBT is the culmination of40 years of effort starred during the Eisenhower Administration. The 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty prohibited nuclear rest explosions in the atmosphere, in outer space and underwarer, but permirred them underground. The 1974 Threshold Test Ban Treary set a size limit on underground test explosions of150 kilotons, roughty 10 times the size ofthe atom bombs exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. When the CTBT enters inro force, the nations who signed it will end all nuclear explosions after more than 2,000 nuclear tests spanning half a century.

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  Cornerstones of Security

  Arms Control Treaties in the Nuclear Era

  • Thomas Graham, Jr., Damien J. LaVera(Authors)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • University of Washington Press

    (Publisher)

  Convinced that the most effective way to achieve an end to nuclear testing is through the conclu-sion of a universal and internationally and effectively verifiable comprehensive nuclear test-ban treaty, which has long been one of the highest priority objectives of the international community in the field of disarmament and non-proliferation, Noting the aspirations expressed by the Parties to the 1963 Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water to seek to achieve the discontinuance of all test explosions of nuclear weapons for all time, Noting also the views expressed that this Treaty could contribute to the protection of the environment, Affirming the purpose of attracting the adherence of all States to this Treaty and its objective to 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, Have agreed as follows: Article I. Basic Obligations 1. Each State Party undertakes not to carry out any nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion, and to prohibit and prevent any such nuclear explosion at any place under its jurisdiction or control. 2. Each State Party undertakes, furthermore, to refrain from causing, encouraging, or in any way participating in the carrying out of any nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion. Article II. The Organization A. General Provisions 1. The States Parties hereby establish the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Organization (hereinafter referred to as “the Organization”) to achieve the object and purpose of this Treaty, to ensure the implementation of its provisions, including those for international verification of compliance with it, and to provide a forum for consultation and cooperation among States Parties.

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  Banning the Bang or the Bomb?

  Negotiating the Nuclear Test Ban Regime

  • Mordechai Melamud, Paul Meerts, I. William Zartman(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  The treaty was officially signed on August 5, 1963, and after ratification by the three signatories it rapidly entered into force on October 11, 1963. This represented the first major agreement to limit the arms race during the Cold War, and it initiated a series of negoti- ations that produced the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the series of Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties, the dismantling of intermediate- range nuclear weapons, and numerous other arms control agreements. However, it also left the door open for continued nuclear testing at underground test sites, allowing further developments such as enhanced radiation warheads, smaller and lighter nuclear warheads necessary to equip MIRV delivery vehicles, and a wide range of other technical improvements in nuclear war-fighting capabilities that continue to chal- lenge the stability of nuclear deterrence. There are a number of reasons why the Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) was successfully concluded in 1963 rather than a comprehensive ban. Most importantly, it largely avoided the complex questions of verification by relying solely on national technical means to verify the treaty in the three environments to which it applied, while setting aside any agreement on the controversial issue of differentiating underground nuclear tests from other seismic events. Although most scientific evi- dence available at the time suggested that underground nuclear testing could be detected with reasonably high levels of confidence, political opposition to a ban on the further development of nuclear weapons had seized on the verification issue and the risk of cheating in order to oppose a comprehensive nuclear weapons ban.

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  British Nuclear Weapons and the Test Ban

  Squaring the Circle of Defence and Arms Control, 1974-82

  • John R. Walker, John Walker(Authors)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  2

  The 1977–1982 Tripartite Test Ban Treaty Negotiations and Aftermath

  DOI: 10.4324/9781003375708-2

  Introduction

  A comprehensive Test Ban Treaty had long been the Holy Grail of nuclear arms control as explained in the previous chapter.1 The first serious efforts to negotiate such a treaty began in 1958 between the US, UK and USSR. International anxieties over the adverse health consequences of radioactive fallout from the very large megaton range yield atmospheric tests conducted by the US and Soviet Union in the early and mid-1950s also provided a compelling driver for action to stem the threat posed by such tests to public health and the environment. However, these efforts in the Conference on the Discontinuance of Nuclear Weapon Tests ended in 1962 with the principal protagonists as far apart as ever on such key verification issues as the role of on-site inspection and the number of seismic stations to be hosted on the participants’ national territory. Action then moved to the new multilateral Eighteen Nation Disarmament Committee, but that solved nothing and after the US, UK and USSR eventually agreed on a Partial Test Ban Treaty in the summer of 1963, the domestic and international pressures for a comprehensive test ban were much reduced. Superpower attention and efforts now moved to the negotiation of a Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty from 1965. A Non-Proliferation Treaty was also a key UK objective and the UK itself played a key role in these negotiations.2 Both the US and USSR moved nuclear testing underground and evinced no further interest in a comprehensive test ban. Instead, anxieties over the development of anti-ballistic missile warheads and the development of multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs) provided further incentives to test. From 1965 until 1977 the pace of nuclear testing by the superpowers increased dramatically. In that period, for example, the US conducted 386 tests with 56 tests held in a single year – 1968.3 The Soviet Union conducted 296 tests.4 In the same time frame, the UK conducted a mere five tests. There were, hardly surprisingly, no trilateral or multilateral Test Ban Treaty negotiations in this period. However, the US did agree on a Threshold Test Ban Treaty with the USSR in 1974, which limited the yield to no more than 150 kilotons, and a separate agreement on a Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty in 1976.5

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  Monitoring Underground Nuclear Explosions

  • Ola Dahlman, Hans Israelson(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Elsevier

    (Publisher)

  As nuclear tests in the atmosphere, outer space and under water are already banned by the Partial Test Ban Treaty, the realization of a comprehensive TEST-BAN NEGOTIATIONS 27 test ban of nuclear weapons in the form of an international instrument would only require the conclusion of a treaty banning nuclear weapon tests under-ground, which is the remaining environment. In concluding a treaty banning underground nuclear weapon tests, two major problems are cited—namely, (1) verification and (2) how to deal with peaceful nuclear explosions. So I shall now address myself to these two problems. As to the first problem, as a result of discussions over many years on an under-ground nuclear weapons test ban, it has become clear that one of the greatest obstacles to the conclusion of the treaty is the difference between the super-Powers about verification. So we have stressed time and again that, if a com-prehensive test ban of nuclear weapons cannot be expected in the near future because of the differences of position on verification, both the United States and the Soviet Union should show their sincerity towards this question by ban-ning underground nuclear weapon tests from wherever verification is possible, and at the earliest possible date, as an intermediate measure leading to a com-prehensive test ban. As a concrete measure along these lines, we have suggested the banning of underground nuclear explosions above a certain level which can be detected and identified by present seismological means, and then the gradual lowering of the threshold of underground nuclear tests, which would eventually lead to a comprehensive test ban. As to the next question of peaceful nuclear explosions, I need to reiterate that it is necessary to ensure that these peaceful nuclear explosions should not be used for military purposes.

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  Avoiding Armageddon

  Europe, the United States, and the Struggle for Nuclear Non-Proliferation, 1945-1970

  • Susanna Schrafstetter, Stephen Twigge(Authors)
  • 2004(Publication Date)
  • Praeger

    (Publisher)

  3 The Moral Option: Western Europe and the Test Ban Treaty Negotiations, 1954-1963 If the test program of the Great Powers goes on, there is no hope of dealing with what you call the n-th country problem. Some countries will develop powerful systems, probably the Chinese and eventually the Germans and, of course, the French. Nothing can stop them if the Great Powers go on. —Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, December 1961 The transition from comprehensive disarmament plans to limited schemes of arms control in the mid 1950s shifted the focus of international disarma- ment negotiations toward the prohibition of nuclear tests. The concept of a test ban had been an element of most comprehensive disarmament plans but, as shown in chapter 2, after the Lucky Dragon accident of March 1954 that showered a Japanese fishing boat with radioactive fallout, the super- powers began to face concerted international pressure to end testing. 1 The United Nations demanded an immediate end to nuclear tests, but despite international pressure, progress remained slow. From the first calls to end nuclear testing in the mid-1950s to the conclusion of the Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) in Moscow in August 1963 took a decade of often-tortuous diplomacy. The PTBT, which outlawed nuclear testing (with the exception of underground tests), was the first successful international agreement designed to stop hazardous radioactive fallout and restrain global nuclear proliferation. Yet, as Marc Trachtenberg notes, the PTBT had "a certain symbolic value: it had come to represent a whole web of understandings." 2 86 Avoiding Armageddon The success of the PTBT was not solely dependent on superpower agree- ment. The role of the Europeans in the process was equally critical and illuminates the often-divergent polices pursued by Britain, France, and West Germany. Britain, the only established European nuclear state, worked closely with Washington in pursuit of an agreement.

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  Silencing the Bomb

  One Scientist's Quest to Halt Nuclear Testing

  • Lynn R. Sykes(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Columbia University Press

    (Publisher)

  3 FROM THE EARLY NEGOTIATIONS TO HALT NUCLEAR TESTING TO THE LIMITED Test Ban Treaty OF 1963

  I highlight here some of the proposals, negotiations, and problems in working toward either a limited (LTBT) or a full comprehensive nuclear test ban (CTBT) during the administrations of Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy.

  Following a call by India’s Prime Minister Nehru in 1954 for a pause in nuclear testing, several other countries presented proposals for a halt in testing. Formal negotiations toward a test ban began in the second half of the 1950s and continued into the early 1960s.

  PROS AND CONS OF BANNING NUCLEAR TESTS

  Debate has raged for more than sixty years over whether a Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) is in the interest of the United States. I touch here briefly on some of the main reasons a CTBT has been either proposed or opposed.

  It should be remembered that a CTBT involves a ban on the testing of nuclear weapons, not a ban on their delivery systems such as aircraft and missiles. It does not prohibit the manufacture of additional weapons that have already been tested. While a CTBT is an important step, it is but one component of an overall effort to control nuclear arms. A CTBT may help to promote other arms control initiatives and agreements.

  Many of the arguments for and against a CTBT (see Table 3.1 ) have been enunciated for decades. Some are new with the 1996 treaty. It is important to note that verification capabilities have increased, especially in the past twenty years.

  TABLE 3.1

     Pros and Cons of Banning Nuclear Tests

  PRO	CON
  1.  The U.S. lead in nuclear weapons will diminish without a CTBT.	Others will cheat and erode the U.S. lead. National security is best enhanced by continued testing of new weapons.

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  Disarmament Sketches

  Three Decades of Arms Control and International Law

  • Thomas Graham, Jr.(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • University of Washington Press

    (Publisher)

  COMPREHENSIVE NUCLEAR Test Ban Treaty

  The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT ) issue began to take center stage during my tenure as acting director. Perhaps the very first disarmament issue of the nuclear era was the effort to halt nuclear explosive testing. It began in 1955, just a year after the Lucky Dragon incident in which a thermonuclear test produced a much larger than expected yield and, as a result, Japanese fisherman aboard the Lucky Dragon were struck by fallout outside the area of the central Pacific cordoned off by the U.S. government. Fallout from a Soviet test fell on Japan the same year and concerns began to be expressed about the byproducts of nuclear explosions entering the food chain—particularly strontium-90 in milk. During the 1956 campaign presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson suggested a moratorium on nuclear testing, for which he was denounced, but in 1958 President Eisenhower announced a U.S. testing moratorium and the Soviet Union followed suit. However, in 1960 France conducted its first nuclear test in the Sahara desert and in 1961 the Soviet Union broke the moratorium with the largest nuclear explosion of all time (58.6 megatons). The United States responded with a vigorous test series.

  Thereafter, there was renewed effort to move the test ban negotiations forward. The negotiations had been going on for several years, with verification and inspection issues remaining the principal stumbling block. The United States wanted on-site inspections and unmanned seismic stations on Soviet territory. The Soviets accepted both in principle, but the two sides could not get together on the numbers: the United States wanted the right to seven inspections per year, but the Soviets would only agree to three. The same was true for remote sensors—the principle was agreed, the numbers were not.

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  Nuclear Weapons and Security

  The Effects of Alternative Test Ban Treaties

  • Jonathan Medalia(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Taylor & Francis

    (Publisher)

  8 Effects of More Restrictive Test Bans on Other Countries * Warren H. Donnelly, Charlotte P. Preece, and, Robert G. Sutter

  As nuclear weapons and weapons-development capabilities proliferate, any U.S.-Soviet test ban negotiations increasingly will have to take into account the concerns and behavior of other nations. Willingness of other nuclear weapons states and non-nuclear weapons nations with strong nuclear industrial bases to participate in a more restrictive test ban regime will be essential to the long-term success of global efforts to constrain the spread of nuclear weapons.

  Nonnuclear weapons states with little potential or interest in developing nuclear weapons, in general, favor a comprehensive test ban as a step towards ending the nuclear arms race and as a powerful vehicle to dissuade those nations close to developing nuclear weapons from acquiring such arsenals.

  The first section of this chapter examines the attitudes and policies of the major non-superpower nuclear weapons nations-France, Great Britain, and the People's Republic of China-towards nuclear testing and various types of test bans. It also considers the views of several nonnuclear NATO powers toward a U.S.-Soviet comprehensive test ban. The second section draws out some of the implications of more restrictive test bans for nonnuclear weapons states-including those nations now considered to be at or near the threshold of producing nuclear weapons-and for U.S. efforts to extend the Non-Proliferation Treaty into the twenty-first century on terms favorable to U.S. security interests.

  Attitudes of Third Country Nuclear Powers and Nonnuclear Allies Toward a Test Ban

  One condition that might affect a U.S.-Soviet decision to sign a CTBT or a more restrictive test ban agreement is the willingness of other nuclear weapons states to accept similar constraints. The United Kingdom, France, and the People's Republic of China have conducted 41, 141, and 32 tests respectively from the inception of their nuclear weapons programs through December 31, 1987. At present, all these countries assert that nuclear deterrence is the foundation for their security; that their nuclear arsenals contribute to global as well as national deterrence; that unless the superpowers first agree to deep cuts in strategic nuclear weapons, they must maintain and/or modernize their nuclear arsenals to retain minimal deterrent capabilities; and, that testing is vital to ensuring the reliability of their deterrents. In other words, these three nuclear weapons states view a test ban as the result of superpower agreement on significant arms reduction and not as a vehicle to create future arms reduction for themselves or others.

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  Kennedy, Macmillan and the Cold War

  The Irony of Interdependence

  • N. Ashton(Author)
  • 2002(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  He is of the Devil for he says there is no God.’ 10 Even in respect of international relations, the pulls on Macmillan and Kennedy’s policies were contradictory. Macmillan and the British Government remained sensitive to Commonwealth opinion, and, as The Times noted in March 1961, ‘the Asian, and still more the African, Governments regard tests with acute moral loathing. Their attitude may be exaggerated but there is no doubt that if any western Power started testing again this would put Commonwealth links under heavy strain.’ 11 Although Kennedy was also conscious of the potential damage to non-aligned or The Search for a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty 195 neutralist sentiment, 12 a far more important consideration was the need to maintain US Cold War credibility, which had been the key plank of his 1960 election platform. If these were the personal predilections and political limitations that gov- erned the handling of the test ban question during the years 1961–3, what of the political inheritance bequeathed by Eisenhower to Kennedy in this particular field of Anglo-American relations? Metaphorically, the test ban tributary could be said to have followed the channel cut by the broader stream of détente during the period 1958–60. In May 1958, Khrushchev had agreed to Eisenhower’s proposal that technical talks should take place on the issue of a nuclear test ban. A Conference of Experts meeting in Geneva during July and August 1958 reported that it would be technically feasible to establish a system of controls to monitor compliance with any test ban agreement. Thereafter, it was agreed that political negotiations should take place on the issue. A further conference was convened in Geneva at the end of October. All three nuclear powers observed a moratorium on nuclear testing from this point onwards, which was to last until it was broken by the Soviet Union in August 1961.

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