The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Negotiations: A Case

e Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty

Negotiations: A Case Study

Maurice A. Mallin

CASE STUDY SERIES

Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction

National Defense University

Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction

National Defense University

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Deputy Director

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Cover: Meeting of the Conference on Disarmament in the Council Chamber

of the Palace of Nations (U.S. Mission/Eric Bridiers)

e Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty

Negotiations: A Case Study

Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction

Case Study 7

Case Study Series General Editor: Dr. Ling Yung

by Maurice A. Mallin

e Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty

Negotiations: A Case Study

National Defense University Press

Washington, D.C.

February 2017

Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within are solely those

of the contributors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Defense Department or any

other agency of the Federal Government. Cleared for public release; distribution unlimited.

Portions of this work may be quoted or reprinted without permission, provided that a

standard source credit line is included. NDU Press would appreciate a courtesy copy of reprints

or reviews.

First printing, February 2017

Contents

Introduction ........................................................................................................ 1

Developments Leading to Negotiations .......................................................... 2

Perspectives of Key Actors on Essential Treaty Objectives ........................... 4

e Negotiations Move Forward ...................................................................... 5

Key Issues ............................................................................................................7

e Endgame ....................................................................................................13

e August 22 Plenary .....................................................................................14

Observations and Lessons Learned ................................................................16

Notes .................................................................................................................. 19

About the Author .............................................................................................24

Introduction

On July 16, 1945, the United States conducted the world’s rst nuclear explosive test in

Alamagordo, New Mexico. e test went o as planned; a nuclear chain reaction, in the form of

an explosion, could be created.

Less than a month later, nuclear weapons were used to support

Allied eorts to end World War II.

Just 4 years later, on August 29, 1949, the Soviet Union conducted its rst nuclear test. e

United States intensied eorts to develop the hydrogen bomb, which it tested in 1952. e de-

velopment of new nuclear weapon designs, as well as the imperative to test these designs, were

now inextricably linked. Nuclear tests were considered essential to maintaining condence in

the eectiveness and usability of these weapons.

Since the Alamogordo test, upwards of 2,000 nuclear tests have taken place globally. Of

these, 528 were conducted in the atmosphere, with signicant environmental consequences.

Between 1945 and 1950, seven atmospheric nuclear tests took place. As the Cold War escalated,

weapons testing accelerated: 63 such tests occurred between 1951 and 1954.

ree of these

were conducted by the United Kingdom, who joined the nuclear “club” with a test in 1952

(France tested in 1960, followed by China in 1964).

In 1954, aer an unexpectedly powerful and environmentally damaging test called Castle

Bravo took place over Bikini Atoll in the Asia Pacic,

Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru

called for a “standstill” in nuclear explosive testing: “Pending progress towards some solution,

full or partial, in respect of the prohibition of these weapons of mass destruction, the Govern-

ment would consider, some sort of what may be called a “standstill agreement” in respect, at

least, of these actual explosions.”

In 1958 the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom undertook negotia-

tions over a cessation of nuclear testing, but a number of issues, mostly related to verifying com-

pliance, proved intractable.

Some success was attained aer the Cuban Missile Crisis, as the

three parties agreed in 1963 to the Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT), which banned all nuclear

testing in the atmosphere, in space, or underwater. Nuclear tests would henceforth be permit-

ted only underground. Subsequent eorts to negotiate a complete cessation proved unsuccess-

ful until 1994, when negotiations on a multilateral comprehensive nuclear test ban began in

earnest.

ese negotiations were completed in 1996. Shortly thereaer, a treaty text was over-

whelmingly supported at the United Nations. However, over 20 years later, the Comprehensive

WMD Center Case Study 7

Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) has not yet entered into force. As such, this case study will

consider the following:

 the developments that led to the start of negotiations

 the perspectives of the key actors and their impacts upon the negotiations

 a summary of the negotiations, focusing on key issues and the eorts to reach resolu-

tion on them

 the endgame of the negotiations

 a few key lessons learned, which may have utility for future multilateral negotiations,

touching on issues associated with leadership, factors that impact decisionmaking, and

how a negotiation must balance national interests and negotiating objectives.

Developments Leading to Negotiations

In the preamble to the LTBT, the United States and the Soviet Union armed their com-

mitment to the “speediest possible achievement of an agreement on general and complete dis-

armament,” as well as “the discontinuance of all test explosions of nuclear weapons for all time”

and “negotiations to this end.” As preambular language, however, these objectives were general-

ly considered to be aspirational rather than binding commitments. e arms race—and nuclear

weapons testing—continued apace.

As the LTBT was being negotiated, international discussions were also taking place over a

treaty to address growing concerns about the spread, or proliferation, of nuclear weapons. ese

made little progress until the Chinese detonated a nuclear device in 1964, aer which the talks

took on new urgency. In 1968, negotiations on the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear

Weapons, or the NPT, were completed.

e NPT entered into force on March 5, 1970, initially with 43 state parties.

Currently, 190

United Nations (UN) member states are parties to the treaty. Under the NPT, countries that had

tested nuclear weapons before January 1, 1967, are classied as nuclear-weapon states (NWS).

ese countries were the United States, the Soviet Union, United Kingdom, France, and China.

All other states join the treaty as non-nuclear-weapon states (NNWS).

Under the NPT, the NWS commit not to acquire, or assist other states to acquire, nuclear

weapons. In turn, the NWS commit to pursue nuclear disarmament objectives, as per the NPT’s

Article VI: “Each of the parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on

eective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear

The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Negotiations

disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and eective

international control.”

Many NNWS contend that the NPT is “discriminatory” in creating two separate classes of

states, and that the NWS have not taken sucient steps to meet their Article VI commitments.

A cessation of nuclear testing is oen cited as such a step. It is not a coincidence that the NPT’s

preamble recalls “the determination expressed by the parties to the 1963 [LTBT] in its Preamble

to seek to achieve the discontinuance of all test explosions of nuclear weapons for all time and

to continue negotiations to this end.”

Every 5 years beginning in 1975, the NPT treaty parties meet to discuss progress on imple-

menting the treaty.

At the meeting in 1990, the issue of a test-ban treaty was extremely con-

tentious, largely because the NWS were still not ready to undertake test-ban negotiations. As a

result, no nal document was agreed to at this meeting.

is outcome did not auger well for the NPT’s 1995 Review and Extension Conference,

which was specically required by the treaty.

At this conference, NPT parties were to decide

whether or not to extend the NPT indenitely, which was a high priority for the United States

and the NWS because they did not want to see the NPT put at risk. Given the priority of a

comprehensive nuclear test ban among the non-nuclear-weapon states, it was evident to the

nuclear-weapon states that a demonstration of support for a comprehensive ban on nuclear

testing would greatly enhance the prospects for indenite extension.

As a result, the nuclear-weapon states began to revisit the test ban issue. With the Cold

War over, the United States and Russia were more open to steps that would reduce nuclear

dangers. One such step would be to support a nuclear test ban. In October 1991, Russia’s Presi-

dent Mikhail Gorbachev announced a 1-year unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing. In April

1992, France announced its own moratorium and in June Gorbachev’s successor, Boris Yeltsin,

extended Russia’s self-imposed halt.

In October 1992, U.S. President George H.W. Bush signed into law the Hateld-Exon-

Mitchell amendment, which imposed a 9-month U.S. moratorium on testing and permitted

limited testing for safety and reliability over the subsequent 3 years. is law instructed the Bush

administration to seek a comprehensive cessation to testing by 1996.

On July 3, 1993, shortly aer assuming oce, the Clinton administration released a state-

ment announcing that the United States would extend its moratorium (unless another state

tested rst). e administration also declared that the stockpile was “safe and reliable,” and that

nuclear testing was not needed for the foreseeable future. In the July 3 statement, the admin-

istration also made clear that it would “explore other means of maintaining our condence in

WMD Center Case Study 7

the safety, reliability, and performance of our nuclear weapons.”

e link between the mora-

torium and developing the means to ensure the continued viability of the nuclear stockpile was

intentional. e administration needed to make clear to the international community—and to

Congress—its commitment to the continued viability of U.S. nuclear assets.

With the United States and Russia, as well as the United Kingdom and France, committed

to a moratorium on nuclear testing, the table was set for Comprehensive Test-Ban negotiations

in the Geneva-based Conference on Disarmament (CD), which began in 1994. As this case

study will discuss, the ve NWS were deeply involved from the outset. India and Pakistan, two

of the so-called threshold nuclear-weapon states, were also active participants.

Israel, the third

country sometimes referred to as a threshold state, kept a close eye on the negotiations. In June

of 1996, Israel (as well as North Korea and others) joined the CD as observers and began to play

a more direct role in the negotiations.

ese ongoing negotiations helped pave the way for a successful NPT Review and Exten-

sion Conference in May of 1995, where the NWS reinforced their commitment to “the comple-

tion by the Conference on Disarmament of a universal and international and eectively veri-

able Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty no later than 1996.”

e NPT was indenitely extended,

but as the negotiations ran their course and issues crystalized, it was clear that concluding the

negotiations would not be an easy task.

Perspectives of Key Actors on Essential Treaty Objectives

In large part, challenges in concluding the negotiations reected the oen-contrasting per-

spectives of the key actors involved. As noted, the majority of non-nuclear-weapon states priori-

tized nuclear disarmament, which, the argument went, would be facilitated by constraining the

NWS from modernizing their nuclear arsenals or possibly testing new designs. For their part,

the nuclear-weapon states acknowledged the potential disarmament impacts of a Comprehen-

sive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, but sought a treaty that would minimize those impacts. ey were

not prepared to negotiate a treaty that would lower condence in the security and reliability of

their weapons. eir primary objective was to raise the bar for new states seeking to cross the

nuclear threshold. India and Pakistan were believed to be moving forward on nuclear weapon

programs. North Korea was clearly exploring a nuclear option. e CTBT’s value, therefore, was

in impeding the nuclear pathway for potential nuclear-weapon states.

e perspectives of India and Pakistan reected not only nonproliferation and disarma-

ment priorities, but also their regional security concerns, which were to a good extent inter-

twined. India had long viewed itself as a key leader of international nuclear disarmament eorts.

The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Negotiations

India never wavered in seeking a commitment from the NWS to a “time-bound” framework for

nuclear disarmament and sought to incorporate language into the CTBT reecting that prior-

ity. However, India also had to prioritize the protection of its regional security, given historical

animosities with a nuclear-armed China and potentially Pakistan.

Pakistan positioned itself as a leader among the states seeking a CTBT with potentially

signicant disarmament impacts. But Pakistan was not prepared to cede any nuclear advantage

to its regional rival and made clear fairly early on that while it would participate constructively

in the negotiations, it would not become a party to a CTBT unless India did so as well.

e varying perspectives of these states, as well as other key NNWS, would signicantly

inuence both the process and the outcome of the test-ban negotiations.

e Negotiations Move Forward

e Geneva-based Conference on Disarmament was established in 1979 to negotiate mul-

tilateral arms control. Prior to the CTBT negotiations, its members had successfully negotiated

the Chemical Weapons Convention and the CD was generally acknowledged by the interna-

tional community to be the logical home for the CTBT talks.

e 38 members of the CD were organized into an Eastern Group, a Western Group, and

a Group of Non-Aligned States (NAS), which consisted of a group of non-nuclear-weapon state

parties to the NPT, as well as India and Pakistan, who were not members of the NPT. Sweden

acted independently, but worked closely with the Western Group. China was a self-proclaimed

“group of one,” working with the nuclear-weapon-states while keeping ties to the NAS.

Every year the CD, which makes decisions on a consensus basis, selects chairmen for the

“ad hoc” committees that coordinate consultations and potential negotiations on agreed topics.

e chairmen are selected on a rotating basis among the three groups of CD member states. In

1994 the chairman of the CD’s Ad Hoc Committee on a Nuclear Test Ban (AHC) was Ambassa-

dor Miguel Marin-Bosch of Mexico, from the Group of Non-Aligned States. In 1995 the chair-

man was from the Eastern Group and in 1996, the nal year of the negotiations, the chairman

was from the Western Group.

Marin-Bosch established two working groups to support the negotiations. One focused on

verication and the other on legal and institutional aspects of the treaty. He also appointed a

number of “friends of the chair,” giving negotiators access to international experts on legal and

technical issues associated with a CTBT.

Under Ambassador Marin-Bosch, negotiations proceeded on the basis of a so-called roll-

ing text. CD members with competing perspectives on any aspect of the treaty could provide

WMD Center Case Study 7

text that reected their position. is language would be added to the rolling text and bracketed.

e idea was that the CD would gradually negotiate a resolution to the issues reected in the

brackets. is approach was continued in 1995 under Marin-Bosch’s successor, Ambassador

Ludwik Dembinski of Poland.

When the NPT’s Review and Extension Conference convened in May 1995, CD states

negotiating the CTBT were divided on many key issues, such as the treaty’s basic obligations,

its verication and monitoring system, and its provisions for entering into force. Despite con-

tinued negotiations aer the Review and Extension Conference, these issues were not settled

until the following year. It did not help that shortly aer the Review and Extension Conference

adjourned, China conducted a nuclear explosive test and France announced that it would un-

dertake a series of eight tests prior to agreeing to a CTBT.

In January 1996, shortly before the CD reconvened, the United Nations General Assembly

(UNGA) adopted a resolution calling for the CTBT negotiations to be completed and opened

for signature “by the outset of the y-rst session of the General Assembly,”

which would

convene in early September 1996. For all intents and purposes, the CD now had a deadline to

complete its work.

When the CD reconvened on January 22, 1996, the rolling text was almost 100 pages long

with over 1,200 bracketed inserts. Ambassador Jaap Ramaker of the Netherlands, who suc-

ceeded Dembinski as the Chairman of the CTBT Ad Hoc Committee, assessed that it would not

be possible for the CD to resolve all the bracketed issues by September 1996. In his view, “it was

pure ction to think that eliminating the bracketed texts would produce a consistent Treaty text

conforming to the standards of a legal instrument.”

Each year, the CD divides its negotiating sessions into three parts. In 1996, these were

scheduled for January 22–March 29, May 13‒June 28, and July 29‒September 13. Despite his

pessimism over the bracketed text, Ramaker sought to conclude the negotiations well before the

end of the third part and keyed his eorts to these dates.

Early in the rst session, Iran and Australia submitted complete CTBT texts for the CD

members to consider, even as work continued on the rolling text. e Iranian text called for a

time-bound framework for nuclear disarmament, which was unacceptable to the NWS. Austra-

lia’s text was closely aligned with Western Group positions and was not as forward leaning on

the disarmament question. Overall, however, the texts shared much in common. For example,

both articulated specic lists of states that would have to join the treaty in order for it to enter

into force.

The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Negotiations

e dynamics of the negotiations were clearly evolving, given the challenge of negotiating

on the basis of the rolling text. On March 28, just prior to the CD’s rst intersessional, Ramaker

introduced an “Outline of a Dra Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty,” and began a 2-month period

of intensive consultations. When the CD reconvened on May 28, he unveiled his rst Chair-

man’s Text, which tracked closely to the March 28 paper.

Many key states, including India, China, and Russia, raised objections. Pakistani Ambas-

sador Munir Akram warned that, “[a] Treaty which descends from heaven or elsewhere may

arrest rather that accelerate our negotiations and the fullment of our deadline.”

In fact, while

the rolling text remained the titular basis for negotiations, the CD negotiators focused their at-

tention on the Chairman’s Text. While plenary and other public sessions continued, the actual

work of nding consensus was undertaken through intensive Chairman’s consultations, infor-

mal meetings among delegations and groups, the assignment of “Friends of the Chair” to focus

on specic issues, and consultations in capitals. Ramaker was intent on nding resolution to the

key issues that divided the negotiators.

Key Issues

Basic Obligation

e issue of the CTBT’s basic obligation—what the prospective treaty would fundamen-

tally require of the states that joined it—was one of the most challenging issues to resolve. Del-

egations sought a wide range of prohibitions that oen went beyond a simple ban on nuclear

weapons tests. For example, Iran and other nations sought the closing of all test sites. China

sought to allow for so-called peaceful nuclear explosions, discussed below. But broadly speak-

ing, debate centered on two competing visions for the treaty’s basic obligation:

 A “zero-yield” ban, meaning that all nuclear explosive testing would be prohibited. Nu-

clear weapons-related tests that did not result in a nuclear explosion (that is, did not result

in a self-sustaining chain reaction, or yield) would not be impacted by the treaty.

 A ban on all nuclear weapons testing, whether or not the test resulted in a nuclear

explosion (that is, reached criticality and resulted in a self-sustaining nuclear reaction).

is would include tests at very low levels (a so-called threshold), as well as non-nuclear-

explosive tests conducted in laboratories or other controlled environments.

Nuclear explosive testing, for example to ensure that a basic design will work as intended,

is an important and generally necessary step toward crossing the nuclear threshold. A ban on

WMD Center Case Study 7

such tests would, therefore, be a signicant constraint to a potential proliferator. Such a ban,

however, would still permit the NWS to conduct so-called sub-critical tests, to ensure the long-

term safety and reliability of their stockpiles. Moreover, a broader ban that included all nuclear

weapons-related testing—whether or not it resulted in a nuclear explosion—was an important

objective for those states seeking to maximize the CTBT’s disarmament impact.

A True Zero-Yield Treaty. In the rst year of the negotiations, the NWS were considering a

so-called threshold treaty that would permit low-yield explosive tests that might result in only a

few pounds of yield. As summarized by Keith Hansen: “Reports indicated that the P-5 [the ve

permanent members of the UN Security Council: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom,

and the United States] wanted to conduct . . . hydronuclear tests, which result in very small

yield but no full-scale nuclear explosions. Some of the P-5 countries were reportedly calling for

a limit of several pounds of yield, while others wanted hundreds of tons of yield to ensure the

safety and reliability of their stockpiles.”

e idea of negotiating a treaty that permitted threshold tests was anathema to the NNWS

and the concept was largely condemned. It was clear to the NWS that a threshold treaty would

be a nonstarter in the CD. e NWS had to decide whether they could accept a ban on all

nuclear testing, or only on nuclear explosive testing—the zero-yield option.

Gradually, the NWS embraced a zero-yield treaty. France, facing severe international back-

lash against its resumed testing, announced in August 1995 that once its tests were completed,

it would support a true zero-yield treaty. Shortly thereaer, on August 11, the White House an-

nounced that it would support a “true zero yield ban” on all nuclear explosions. Consistent with

the July 3 statement, this was conditioned on a number of “safeguards,” including the formal

establishment of a Stockpile Stewardship program, to ensure the long-term safety and reliability

of the stockpile without nuclear explosive testing.

e U.S. announcement was a major impetus to the negotiations. e United Kingdom

endorsed a zero-yield treaty shortly thereaer. China announced its support in March 1996.

President Yeltsin formally announced Russia’s support in April. All ve NWS now supported a

zero-yield treaty.

India, Pakistan, and others expressed disappointment that a ban on all nuclear weapons-

related testing was seemingly out of reach. Arundhati Ghose, India’s ambassador to the CD,

stated that the CTBT should “leave no loophole for activity, either explosive based or non-

explosive based, aimed at the continued development and renement of nuclear weapons.”

Pakistan’s ambassador expressed concern that the NWS felt entitled to conduct safety and reli-

ability tests. Ramaker et al., have summarized Pakistan’s view thusly: “[Pakistan] believed that

The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Negotiations

if a nuclear weapon was not safe or reliable any longer, it should be dismantled. e argument

that nuclear weapons should remain safe and reliable would perpetuate the existence of nuclear

weapons indenitely, which Pakistan found contrary to the purpose of a CTBT.”

e NWS were unwilling to go beyond the prohibition on nuclear explosive testing, which

they argued would advance disarmament by constraining their ability to modernize their weap-

ons or develop new designs. John Holum, Director of the United States Arms Control and

Disarmament Agency, noted a number of technological advancements, such as directed-energy

weapons, that would be foreclosed by a zero-yield treaty. He concluded that “the CTBT’s “great

practical (arms control) impact will . . . be to end development of advanced new weapons and

keep new military applications from emerging.”

Whether or not the NNWS were persuaded is open to question, but the signicance of a

zero-yield CTBT, as well as the real constraints it would put on the NWS, were not lost on the

majority of negotiators. As such, the CTBT’s Article I states that “Each State Party undertakes

not to carry out any nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion.”

Peaceful Nuclear Explosions. An ancillary scope-related issue concerned China’s insis-

tence that the CTBT not foreclose the option for peaceful nuclear explosions (PNEs), a position

it held deep into negotiations. China suggested that it had construction projects for which such

explosions could potentially be useful and pointed to the 1976 U.S.-USSR Peaceful Nuclear Ex-

plosions Treaty as a precedent.

But as Hansen notes, “both the United States and USSR argued

that such explosions had not been useful or safe, and all other members of the CD were opposed

to such an exemption. . . . Moreover, some in the CD feared that China and others would use

PNEs as a loophole to continue developing such weapons.”

China was isolated on the PNE issue and eventually settled for a reference to PNE in the

CTBT’s Article VIII, Review of the Treaty, which stipulates that unless a majority of the state

parties to the treaty decided otherwise, a review conference would be held 10 years aer the

treaty’s entry into force to review the “operation and eectiveness” of the treaty. e CTBT

species that a delegation may seek to raise the PNE issue at this conference.

Verication

Technical issues associated with CTBT verication were largely addressed in subsidiary

bodies to the conference, such as the Group of Scientic Experts (GSE), and in deliberations of

the “friends of the chair” as designated by the chairmen.

Establishing an eective system to

monitor compliance with a CTBT and ensuring that verication be as eective as possible were

high priorities for CD negotiators. It was easy to envisage cheating scenarios and the CTBT’s

WMD Center Case Study 7

verication system had to provide condence that it would deter, or if necessary detect, a covert

nuclear explosion. As summarized by Pierce Corden: “e verifying party naturally looks for

high detection probability at low yield, but the potential cheater must take into account that the

risk of detection has not disappeared, even at low probability, and must in addition factor in

the risk of being caught by multiple systems. . . . [T]hus the cheater can never have an absolute

assurance of success.”

To coordinate the CTBT’s extensive verication and monitoring operations, the CD states

established the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), consisting of

all state parties to the CTBT.

e CTBT further establishes under the CTBTO an International Monitoring System

(IMS) as the technical basis for monitoring compliance with the CTBT.

Once fully opera-

tional, the IMS will consist of over 300 IMS stations, situated throughout the world, to conduct

seismic monitoring for underground tests, hydroacoustic monitoring of the oceans, infrasound

measurements in the atmosphere, and radionuclide monitoring “to detect radioactive debris

from atmospheric explosions or vented by underground or underwater nuclear explosions.”

Negotiators also established an International Data Center (IDC) to collect, process, analyze,

and distribute the ow of data that was produced by the IMS, as well as by cooperating national

facilities that will feed data into the IDC.

It was also agreed that the CTBT should provide for on-site inspections (OSIs) “on the ter-

ritory or in any other place under the jurisdiction or control of a State Party.”

On-site inspec-

tions are to be conducted on a challenge basis and are thus inherently sensitive propositions. A

51-member Executive Council consisting of six regional groupings created specically for the

CTBT will, among numerous other duties, help to manage issues associated with OSIs.

Many OSI-related issues did not lend themselves to technical solutions, and had to be

worked out among the CD state parties. ese included:

 the role of national technical means (NTM), such as a state’s sovereign intelligence and

data collection assets, including satellites, to support an inspection request

 whether a request for a challenge inspection would have to be authorized by the Execu-

tive Council, and if so, on what basis

 the procedures for implementing challenge inspections, including how the inspectors’

access would be managed to ensure that national security interests unrelated to a potential

nuclear test were not compromised.

The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Negotiations

National Technical Means. For the Western Group states in particular, the inclusion of

NTM was essential. e IMS would be highly eective but, as Ramaker has noted, the IMS

“could not give a 100 percent guarantee of detecting any possible nuclear explosion, especially

if conducted under an evasive scenario.”

China, as well as India, Pakistan, and others, argued that NTM would be biased toward the

technologically advanced nations and could be used for purposes beyond CTBT monitoring.

Russia shared those concerns, but was prepared to accept the use of NTM, so long as the means

were strictly technical.

Negotiators agreed that the treaty would permit the use of NTM.

Hansen notes, however,

that while “this was a signicant victory for those countries wanting the CTBT to be an aggres-

sive tool to prevent or detect testing, [it] made those on the defensive side (and in particular

China) take harder positions on the number of votes required to launch an inspection.”

Authorizing an Inspection. CD states were divided on the standard to be met before an

inspection could take place. Most Western Group countries, including the United States, took

the position that if a state requested an inspection, it would proceed unless the Executive Coun-

cil voted to prevent it (for example, by putting up a so-called red light). However, China, India,

Pakistan, Russia, and others foresaw numerous opportunities for politically motivated or frivo-

lous demands for inspections. ese states insisted that any inspection request would have to be

authorized (or “green lighted”) by the Executive Council.

e “red light” standard had won the day in the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC),

where it was agreed that an inspection would take place unless two-thirds of the Executive

Council voted against it— that is, put up a red light. Aer much deliberation among the CTBT

negotiators, however, the green light standard won out. is was seen as necessary to assuage

key countries, including China, to join consensus. Initially, the CD negotiators agreed that a

simple majority of the 51-member Executive Council would have to approve an OSI request

before it could proceed. As discussed below, China would ultimately demand an even tougher

standard.

Managed Access for On-Site Inspections. A challenging set of issues concerned how to

manage the inspection team’s access during an OSI. When conducting an OSI, the inspection

team has to conduct its inspection as eciently and unobtrusively as possible. e inspected

state party has the right to protect assets unrelated to a possible nuclear test from inspection

if it believes that their exposure carries a national security risk. However, that state must then

make provisions to allay any concerns raised by the inspection team. For example, if an inspec-

tion takes place in a facility where sensitive equipment may be located, the inspected state party

WMD Center Case Study 7

would have the right to shroud that equipment, or work with the inspection team to develop

alternative inspection routes that bypassed the equipment.

In the United States, a working group was formed consisting of all interested partners in

the U.S. interagency. is group looked closely at the managed-access provisions developed

for the CWC as a point of departure. At rst, the group sought convergence on easily agreed

issues, such as establishing that a state had a right to manage access if subject to an inspection.

As resolution was reached, guidance was forwarded to the U.S. delegation in Geneva who then

introduced the substance of the guidance and would work to attain consensus within the CD.

e working group would then start on a new set of issues and the process would repeat itself.

Finally, the thorniest issues were tackled, such as inspection timelines, permissible equipment,

the inspection perimeter, permissible steps that a state party could take to protect sensitive

equipment and materials, and alternative methods that a state could deploy to satisfy inspectors’

concerns. e process played out in Geneva and a robust managed-access regime was estab-

lished that was largely based on the U.S. guidance.

Many states made important contributions to the managed-access regime and many OSI-

related issues were strongly debated in the CD. e United States drew upon the vast expertise

of its national laboratories to ensure technically sound positions. e U.S. guidance further

reected an approach that was developed with the support of numerous governmental agencies

with oen competing interests, which helped to ensure balance among its elements. Perhaps

this helped to legitimize the U.S. guidance among the CD states.

Entry into Force (EIF)

An international treaty will generally stipulate conditions for its entry into force (EIF). Un-

til those conditions are met, the treaty’s value is in establishing an international norm, or at least

a yardstick against which the behavior of states can be measured. To be sure, a state that signs a

treaty is legally obligated to adhere to its basic obligations. But the treaty does not become law

until it enters into force.

ere was no disagreement among the CD negotiators that to maximize the potential ben-

ets of the CTBT, the ve NWS and the three threshold states should be treaty parties. e issue

was twofold: rst, whether to seek a simple numerical formulation that could lead to early EIF

of the CTBT, even if it did not include all eight of those states at the outset; and second, whether

to make their ratication a condition for EIF.

India argued strongly that the latter approach, which would specically stipulate that India

(and others) have to ratify the CTBT before it entered into force, was unacceptable. But there

The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Negotiations

was a second problem with this approach that was raised by any number of CD delegations.

Specically, a state whose ratication is required for the CTBT to go into eect could potentially

hold the CTBT hostage, essentially exercising a veto over entry into force. us, for example, if

North Korea was stipulated as a required state, the CTBT would not be able to enter into force

until North Korea ratied it.

Ramaker consulted widely on the EIF issue and many formulations were discussed. Com-

plicating the discussions was that on June 20, a little more than a week before Ramaker intended

to present his nal treaty text, Ambassador Ghose announced that India would not support

the treaty that was being negotiated in the CD. Declaring that the emerging treaty was “not the

CTBT India envisaged,” Ghose went on to say that “India cannot accept any restraints on its ca-

pability, if other countries remain unwilling to accept the obligations to eliminate their nuclear

weapons. Such a Treaty is not conceived as a measure toward universal nuclear disarmament

and it is not in India’s national security interest. India, therefore, cannot subscribe to it in any

f o r m .”

India thus formally rejected the CTBT, even as it was still being negotiated. India fur-

ther made clear that it would not accept the placement of four IMS stations in India, as it had

previously agreed.

is added a new level of complexity to Ramaker’s eorts. On one hand, a broad EIF for-

mula that did not stipulate the nuclear-weapon and the threshold states to be CTBT adherents

was unacceptable to many CD states. On the other, it was obvious that requiring a state that had

rejected the treaty to ratify it before the treaty could enter into force was also highly problematic.

Ramaker worked tirelessly to nd a compromise acceptable to all CD states, but ultimately

had to conclude that “no other solution than to make ratication by all eight, and therefore

by India, a condition sine qua non for entry into force, could nd the necessary acceptance.”

us, when Ramaker presented his nal Chairman’s Text on June 28, the EIF provision listed

44 countries that included the 8 key states as well as others that possessed nuclear research and/

or power reactors, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s April 1996 edition

of “Nuclear Power Reactors in the World.” ese countries had also participated in the CTBT

negotiations in 1996. e CTBT would enter into force aer these 44 states deposited their in-

struments of ratication with the United Nations.

e Endgame

On June 28, 1996, Ramaker announced that in his view, “convergence had reached its

peak”

and introduced a revised Chairman’s Text.

Ramaker discouraged further negotiations,

urging delegates to consult with their capitals on whether they could accept the Chairman’s Text.

WMD Center Case Study 7

e CD reconvened for its nal negotiating session a month later, on July 29—just one day

aer China conducted a nuclear test. China also announced that it would now observe a uni-

lateral moratorium on future testing, stating that “we share the international community’s wish

that yesterday’s test should be the last ever” and announced its support for the Chairman’s Text.

e CD delegations, fresh from intersessional consultations as well as meetings in capitals,

announced their position on the treaty. Most cited the text as imperfect, but supported its trans-

mittal to the United Nations so it could be opened for signature.

On August 14, Ramaker presented the Chairman’s Text as a Working Paper to the CD and

recommended that it be transmitted through the CD Secretariat to the United Nations for con-

sideration when the UNGA convened in September.

However, there was one key substantive change to the text. In consultations, China had

insisted on a 30-state majority to govern an Executive Council decision to authorize an OSI, as

opposed to the simple majority previously agreed. Ramaker determined that this change was

necessary to attain NWS consensus and it was now reected in the Chairman’s dra.

Outraged, India argued that once again the demands of a nuclear-weapon state were heed-

ed while India’s were ignored. A number of other states were also dissatised, as they had re-

frained from reopening the text at the strong urging of the Chairman. India oered a simplied

entry-into-force formula that did not call out any state,

making clear that if the original EIF

language were not changed it would not support the treaty, but would not stand in the way of

its transmittal to the United Nations. Ramaker was not willing to re-open the EIF provision and

India withheld its support.

Ramaker sought to include the CTBT text in the CD’s annual report to the UNGA, along

with the normal record of the deliberations of the ad hoc committees and working groups. India

was now joined by Iran, who objected to the treaty’s inclusion of Israel in the CTBT’s Middle

East/South Asia group. Ramaker explained that this was necessary to strengthen IMS function-

ality in the Middle East and that six groups (as opposed to the traditional ve designated by the

UN) were necessary to ensure that all members of the regional groups would have the opportu-

nity to serve on the Executive Council. Unconvinced, Iran joined India in refusing to allow the

CD to include the treaty text in its annual report.

e August 22 Plenary

e CD met in plenary on August 22, 1996. Pakistan, seizing an opportunity to take the

high road, proposed that the Ad Hoc Committee’s report be forwarded to the UN “for informa-

tional purposes.” India and others questioned whether this was possible and would not agree.

The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Negotiations

Toward the end of the plenary, in an otherwise routine speech thanking Ramaker and

others for their eorts, the Belgian ambassador submitted a one-sentence national paper that

stated, “On behalf of Belgium, I should be grateful if you would arrange for [the treaty text] to

be circulated as an ocial document of the Conference on Disarmament.”

As Rebecca John-

son sums up: “e CD President quickly recorded the decision … the CTBT text was accorded

a CD reference number and ocial status.”

e Belgian letter, with the text of the CTBT at-

tached, was now an ocial CD document.

Just hours later in New York, Richard Butler, Australia’s ambassador to the United Nations,

requested to the UN Secretary-General that the General Assembly convene in plenary and con-

sider the Belgian paper. As put by Johnson, “Australia requested that the CD document contain-

ing the full treaty text . . . be accorded status as a UN document and [proposed] its adoption by

the General Assembly. It was duly accorded the document number A/50/1027, whereupon Aus-

tralia followed with a resolution proposing the adoption of the CTBT as contained therein.”

On September 9, 1996, the resolution was brought to the General Assembly. Many coun-

tries expressed misgivings about how the negotiations were concluded and how the treaty found

its way to the United Nations. Familiar issues associated with the treaty’s basic obligation were

also aired, as well as the EIF provision and the treaty’s disarmament impacts. Nonetheless, on

September 10 the CTBT resolution was endorsed in the UNGA by a vote of 158 to 3. India,

Libya, and Bhutan voted against and ve countries abstained (Cuba, Lebanon, Mauritius, Syria,

and Tanzania). In a nal statement aer the vote, India’s Ambassador Ghose famously declared:

“India will never sign this unequal treaty. Not now, not later. As long as this text contains this

(EIF) article, this Treaty will never come into force.”

On September 24, 1996, the CTBT was opened for signature. President Clinton was the

rst to sign the treaty. As of this writing, 183 nations have signed and 164 have ratied the

CTBT. However, 8 of the 44 required for the CTBT to enter into force, including the United

States, Iran, Israel, and China, have signed but not yet ratied. Russia, France, and the United

Kingdom have ratied. Pakistan, India, and North Korea have not yet signed the CTBT. us

entry into force is not on the immediate horizon.

With respect to the eight key states at the center of the entry-into-force debate:

 In 1999, the United States Senate considered CTBT ratication but did not provide its

consent to ratify the treaty. Subsequent administrations have not yet sought Senate recon-

sideration.

 Russia, an early signatory in 1996, ratied the treaty in 2000 and actively participates in

the work of the CTBTO Preparatory Commission.

WMD Center Case Study 7

 Both India and Pakistan have observed moratoriums since their tests in 1998. India’s

Prime Minister Vajpayee said in 1998 that “India will not stand in the way” of entry into

force of the CTBT, a position India has reiterated numerous times.

 Pakistan has repeatedly rearmed its commitment to its voluntary nuclear test morato-

rium, noting that it won’t be the rst in South Asia to resume testing.

Pakistan has stated

that a decision to ratify the CTBT will be based on its own security calculations, no longer

linking its adherence to India doing so rst.

 Israel, an early CTBT signatory, actively participates in the CTBTO’s Preparatory Com-

mission. In 2014‒2015, it was widely reported that Prime Minister Netanyahu stated that

he sees the CTBT as “signicant” and that he has “no problem” with it.

Observations and Lessons Learned

Many lessons can be drawn from the events that preceded the CTBT negotiations, the ne-

gotiations process, and the endgame. In particular, there is much to consider for policymakers

charged with leading, or supporting, future multilateral negotiations.

Most notably, the CTBT experience demonstrates the challenges faced by decisionmak-

ers as they seek to balance well-intentioned international aspirations with domestic and na-

tional security factors at home. When these interests converge, arms control can help to facilitate

constraints upon armaments of concern. When interests do not converge, eectively negotiating

treaties and agreements takes on new complexities that are usually dicult, if not impossible, to

overcome regardless of how desirable they may be.

To be sure, all of the CD state governments endorsed the objectives of a cessation to nu-

clear testing. But key states were balancing this objective against many factors directly related to

how they perceived their national security interests.

For example, the non-nuclear-weapon states had to decide whether a CTBT that did not

reference a time-bound framework for disarmament and did not ban all nuclear testing would

satisfy their Article VI expectations. In the end, a majority of the NNWS accepted that “banning

the bang, and not the bomb” was signicant and worth supporting, even if it fell short of their

ultimate objective.

Pakistan and India, on the other hand, had direct security issues to consider, in light of the

animosities between them and the fact that they both had weapons programs. It is hard to gauge

whether, under any circumstances, either would have been prepared to adhere to a CTBT at the

time it was negotiated. Pakistan took a lower prole role in the negotiations, given India’s pro-

active and central role. ere should be no doubt, however, that Pakistan was fully committed

The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Negotiations

to its nuclear weapons program. As then-President Z.A. Bhutto famously said in 1965, “if India

builds the bomb, we will eat grass or leaves, even go hungry, but we will get one of our own.”

India’s nuclear program was also progressing rapidly, to the point that by May 1998, India

surprised the world and tested a nuclear device.

Whether a dierent outcome in the negotia-

tions would have aected India’s plans to move forward on its nuclear program, or whether

India’s commitment to that program led it to take the positions that it did, may never be known.

Regardless, India’s inability to achieve its disarmament-related objectives ensured that its weap-

ons program would proceed.

As India’s Ambassador Ghose has said, “India’s decision not to

sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was based on its traditional approach to nuclear disar-

mament and its national security concerns [emphasis added].”

Finally, each nuclear weapon state had its own considerations. None was prepared to ac-

cept a basic obligation that would end all nuclear weapons testing. At the time the CTBT was

negotiated, thousands of nuclear weapons were still deployed, with the vast majority in the

hands of the United States and Russia. It was simply untenable to risk undercutting the reliabil-

ity, safety, and security of these weapons. In the United States, this consideration was a litmus

test among Congressional critics. However unpopular in the CD, it would not be possible for

the United States to agree to end all nuclear weapons testing.

is discussion tells us that Ambassador Ramaker’s ability to inuence the outcome of

the negotiations was, therefore, limited, and it is to his credit that he made as much progress

as he did. His eorts well demonstrate the importance of strong, focused leadership in guiding

negotiations to their conclusion. Ambassador Ramaker did all he could to achieve consensus on

a CTBT text. Given the state of the rolling text when he took the reins of the ad hoc committee,

Ramaker’s decision to abandon the rolling text was unpopular with many of the delegations, but

provided the CD with a pathway to meeting the UNGA deadline.

Ramaker was ultimately unsuccessful in attaining a consensus among the negotiators. is

suggests that decisions impacting the course of a negotiation, or whether a state can accept the -

nal product of those negotiations, are rarely made in the negotiating halls—they are made in state

capitals. us, as important as Ramaker’s approach was, he was unable ultimately to achieve a

negotiating consensus.

Nonetheless, a treaty that has not yet entered into force, but which enjoys a broad consen-

sus, can still be a powerful expression of the international community. Since 1998, North Korea

is the only state that has conducted a nuclear test and in fact, the ve nuclear-weapon states,

along with India and Pakistan, are adhering to self-imposed moratoriums on explosive testing.

WMD Center Case Study 7

For its part, Israel supports the CTBT and participates in the operations of the CTBTO’s Prepa-

ratory Commission.

Whether and when the CTBT enters into force remains to be seen, but its value interna-

tionally remains signicant.

The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Negotiations

Notes

See, for example, Ola Dahlman, Svein Mykkeltveit, and Hein Haak, Nuclear Test Ban: Con-

verting Political Visions to Reality (Berlin: Springer Science and Business Media, 2009), chapter one.

See, for example, Arms Control Association, “Fact Sheet: e Nuclear Testing Tally,” updated

January 2016, available at <https://www.armscontrol.org/print/2600>.

Ibid.

e March 1954 Castle Bravo test reached 15 megatons well over the expectations of the

scientists and technicians who planned the test. is is approximately 1,000 times more powerful than

the Hiroshima or Nagasaki explosions. e test le the atoll uninhabitable, due to the high levels of

radioactive fallout that resulted from the test. A 2012 United Nations report noted that the Castle Bravo

test, along with others in the region, resulted in “near-irreversible” atmospheric contamination. See, for

example, Colin Georgescu, A/HRC/21/48/Add.1, “Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Implications

of the Environmentally Sound Management and Disposal of Hazardous Substances and Wastes,” United

Nations General Assembly, September 3, 2012, available at <www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/

HRCouncil/RegularSession/Session21/A-HRC-21-48-Add1_en.pdf>.

Speech by Jawaharlal Nehru, in the Lok Sabha (the lower house of India’s parliament), New

Delhi, April 2, 1954, quoted in Arundhati Ghose, “Negotiating the CTBT: India’s Security Concerns and

Nuclear Disarmament,” Journal of International Aairs (1997), 239‒261, 241.

Aer leaving oce, President Eisenhower indicated that his greatest regret as President was

not attaining a test ban treaty. Glenn T. Seaborg and Benjamin Loeb, Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Test

Ban (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1981), 10.

Two other treaties between the United States and Russia, the reshold Test Ban Treaty

(TTBT) and the Peaceful Nuclear Explosives Treaty (PNET), also put limited constraints on nuclear

testing. Both were ratied in December of 1990. For an overview of the TTBT see U.S. Department of

State, Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Limi-

tation of Underground Nuclear Weapons Tests: Text of the Treaty (Washington, DC: U.S. Government

Printing Oce, 1974), available at <www.state.gov/t/isn/5204.htm>. For an overview of the PNET, see

U.S. Department of State, Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist

Republics on Underground Nuclear Explosions for Peaceful Purposes: Text of the Treaty (Washington, DC:

U.S. Government Printing Oce, 1976), available at <www.state.gov/t/isn/5182.htm>. Negotiations on

strengthened verication provisions for both treaties, contained in protocols, were agreed in June of

1990 and both treaties entered into force in December of that year.

As per Article IX of the Treaty, the NPT entered into force once the three-designated deposi-

tary states (the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and the United States) and 40 other states deposited

their instruments of ratication.

e Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), Article VI. See <www.un.org/

en/confrnpt/2005/npttreaty.html>.

Ibid.

e NPT requires a review conference 5 years aer entry into force, and states that parties

may convene review conferences every 5 years thereaer if they decide to do so.

WMD Center Case Study 7

e NPT’s Article X stipulates that “Twenty-ve years aer the entry into force of the Treaty,

a conference shall be convened to decide whether the Treaty shall continue in force indenitely, or shall

be extended for an additional xed period or periods.”

Mordechai Melamud, Paul Meerts, and I. William Zartman, eds., Banning the Bang or the

Bomb? Negotiating the Nuclear Test Ban Regime (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 104.

e legislation also allowed for up to three tests to be implemented in conjunction with the

United Kingdom, who tested at the U.S. test site. President Bush did not strongly support a test ban;

however, the amendment was attached to an appropriation bill that included funding for the supercon-

ducting supercollider in Texas, a Bush priority; per author’s correspondence with Dunbar Lockwood,

who has written extensively on this topic.

U.S. White House, Oce of the Press Secretary, “Background Information: U.S. Policy on

Nuclear Testing and a Comprehensive Test Ban,” July 3, 1993, available at <http://fas.org/irp/odocs/

pdd11.htm>.

ere is no specic denition of a “threshold” state. However, these three states shared

certain characteristics. ey had not foreclosed the nuclear weapons option; were not members of the

NPT; and had advanced nuclear infrastructures that could, or were close to being able to, support a

weapons program.

e CD expanded to 61 states, with full membership coming into eect aer the completion

of the CTBT negotiations. Jenifer Mackby, who was a senior ocer at the CD during the negotiations

and served as the CD’s technical secretariat, points out that observer states could actively participate in

the negotiations, but were not permitted to break CD consensus. Israel, for example, was very eective

as an observer, participating in the CD’s discussions, submitting papers to the CD, and oering new lan-

guage (to be bracketed) into the rolling text, for example on issues associated with verication. Private

correspondence from Jenifer Mackby to the author, September 24, 2016.

e commitment to a CTBT was enshrined in “NPT/CONF. 1995/32 (Part I), Annex,

Principles and Objectives for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament” (Decision 2). is was the

second of three “Decision Documents” taken at the conference. Decision 1 dealt with enhanced review

processes for the NPT. Decision 3 enshrined the decision to indenitely extend the NPT and can be

found at “NPT/CONF. 1995/32 (Part I), Annex, Extension of the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of

nuclear Weapons” (Decision 3).

For a discussion of the relationship between the NPT and the CTBT, with a particular focus

on the 1995 Review and Extension Conference, see Maurice A. Mallin, “CTBT and NPT: Options for

U.S. Policy,” e Nonproliferation Review (Winter 1995), 1–11.

e CD was the successor organization to a range of UN-based negotiating forums focused

on disarmament, including theTen-Nation Committee on Disarmament(1960), theEighteen-Nation

Committee on Disarmament(1962–68), and theConference of the Committee on Disarmament(1969–

78), where the NPT was negotiated.

Rebecca Johnson notes that “China engaged in rhetoric that echoed the [nonaligned states],

but carried out testing and pursuing the modernization of its nuclear arsenal.” See Johnson, “e Role

of Civil Society in Negotiating the CTBT,” in Melamud, et al., Banning the Bang or the Bomb, 105.

Resolution of the General Assembly, “A/RES/50/65, 9 January 1996. Comprehensive Nuclear

The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Negotiations

Test Ban Treaty.” e General Assembly began its work on September 10, 1996.

Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization

(CTBTO). Interview with Jaap Ramaker, Chairman of the CTBT Negotiations in 1996.

Johnson, “e Role of Civil Society in Negotiating the CTBT,” in Melamud, et al., Banning

the Bang or the Bomb, 105.

Keith A. Hansen, e Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty—An Insider’s Perspective (Stan-

ford: Stanford University Press, 2006), 24.

e safeguards include (consistent with the July 3, 1993, statement discussed above) the

establishment of the Stockpile Stewardship program, as well as the maintenance of the capability to

resume nuclear testing prohibited by the treaty, should the United States cease to be bound to adhere

to the treaty, and the requirement for annual certication from both the Secretary of Defense and the

Secretary of Energy that the stockpile was safe and reliable. See U.S. White House, Oce of the Press

Secretary, “Fact Sheet: Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Safeguards,” August 11, 1995.

Statement of Arundhati Ghose, Ambassador/Permanent Representative of India to UN,

Geneva, in the Plenary of the Conference on Disarmament on January 25, 1996.

Jaap Ramaker, Jenifer Mackby, Peter D. Marshall, and Robert Geil, e Final Test: A History

of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Negotiations (Austria: Provisional Technical Secretary of the Pre-

paratory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization, 2003).

John Holum, Director of the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, State-

ment to the CD, in Conference on Disarmament, Final Record of the Seven Hundred and Twenty-rst

Plenary Meeting (CD document CD/PV.721, January 23, 1996), 14.

CTBT, Article I. See Appendix A.

Hansen, e Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, 27. Negotiations on the Peaceful Nucle-

ar Explosions Treaty were completed in 1976. As noted in note 7, above, it was ratied in 1990 aer the

parties agreed on measures to strengthen verication. Among other limitations, the United States and

the Soviet Union agreed not to carry out any individual nuclear explosions with a yield exceeding 150

kilotons; they also agreed to to intrusive verication procedures including national technical means, site

access, and heightened information sharing. See, for example, U.S. Department of State,Treaty between

the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on Underground Nuclear Explo-

sions for Peaceful Purposes: Text of the Treaty (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Oce, 1976).

Available at <www.state.gov/t/isn/5182.htm>.

Ibid., 27.

See Ola Dahlman, “How Can Science Support a Process Towards a World Free of Nuclear

Weapons?” Science & Global Security 21, no. 2 (2013), 95‒105. Dahlman explains: “In July 1976, before

the political CTBT negotiations started, the Conference of the Committee on Disarmament created the

Group of Scientic Experts (GSE) to ‘specify the characteristics of an international monitoring system.’

e GSE worked for 20 years, until the nuclear test ban treaty negotiations were concluded in 1996, in a

formal process to provide the groundwork on verication for a CTBT.” is case study focuses primarily

on the political and procedural issues that required diplomatic resolution.

Pierce S. Corden, “e Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty: Technical Issues for the

United States,” APS Physics Forum on Physics and Society, April, 2013. Available at <https://www.aps.

WMD Center Case Study 7

org/units/fps/newsletters/201304/test-ban.cfm>.

Article II of the CTBT establishes the CTBTO. However, the CTBTO will not come into

being until the CTBT enters into force. All technical, administrative, and other CTBT-related work is

therefore carried out by the CTBT’s Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban-

Treaty Organization and the Provisional Technical Secretariat.

A good discussion of the International Monitoring System is at the CTBTO website, available

at <https://www.ctbto.org/>.

CTBTO, Overview of the Verication Regime, available at <www.ctbto.org/>.

CTBT, Article IV.

e composition of the Executive Council was the topic of signicant debate in the CD. For

one thing, UN bodies generally relied on ve groupings; some states were unhappy that a six-group ap-

proach was developed specically for the CTBT, and were concerned about unnecessarily setting a new

precedent. Members of both the NWS and the NNWS argued for permanent representation. A number

of proposals were considered. In the end, Ramaker went with the six regional groupings. He believed six

were critical to ensure eective geographic distribution to support the IMS, as well as to ensure eective

representation on the Executive Council. ese six were: Africa; Eastern Europe; Latin America and the

Caribbean; the Middle East and South Asia; South-East Asia, the Pacic, and the Far East; and North

America and Western Europe.

See Jaap Ramaker, “Towards a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty,” NATO Review 44 (1996), 26‒29. p.

5. e IMS was designed to reliably detect a nuclear explosion anywhere in the world, but the practical

reality was that no verication system could be perfect.

Ibid.

Specically, the treaty states that in addition to data collected by the IMS, an inspection can

be based on “any relevant technical information obtained by national technical means of verication in

a manner consistent with generally recognized principles of international law.” CTBT, Article IV.

Hansen, e Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, 35.

Recollections of the author, who chaired the United States Working Group on Managed Ac-

cess. is working group was part of the larger eort in the United States to develop appropriate guid-

ance, and establish eective technical and operational parameters for, the CTBT.

Ghose, “Negotiating the CTBT,” 255.

Ramaker, “Towards a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.”

e 44 countries whose ratication is required for CTBT entry into force are: Algeria,

Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia,

the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea), Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary,

India, Indonesia, Islamic Republic of Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Pakistan,

Peru, Poland, Romania, Republic of Korea, Russian Federation, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden,

Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, United States of

America, Vietnam, and Zaire.

Jaap Ramaker, “e Negotiating Process: 1994-1996: A View From e Chair,” in Banning the

Bang or the Bomb ed. Mordechai Melamud et al., 71.

See, for example, Ramaker, “Towards a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty,” 7.

The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Negotiations

Teresa Poole, “China’s Last Explosion Ends Nuclear Tests,” e Independent, July 29, 1996,

available at <www.independent.co.uk/news/world/chinas-last-explosion-ends-nuclear-tests-1331145.

html>.

irty was chosen as it was about halfway between a simple and two-thirds majority.

Specically, India urged the adoption of an EIF formula that simply stated:”is Treaty shall

enter in to force 180 days aer the date of the deposit of the Instruments of Ratication by 65 States and

no less than two years aer its opening for signature.” See, for example, Ghose, August 8, 1996 State-

ment.

Ghose, “Negotiating the CTBT,” 225.

CD/1427, Letter dated August 22, 1996, from the Permanent Representative of Australia to

the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General, UN document A/50/1027, August 26, 1996.

Rebecca Johnson, Unnished Business: e Negotiation of the CTBT and the End of Nuclear

Testing (Geneva: United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, 2009), 140. Johnson notes that

“this tactic has been agreed in a private meeting of Western delegations, and spearheaded by Belgium

in part because [its] ambassador, Baron Guillaume, was due to retire and would not therefore suer if

there was any backlash against the maneuver,” 337, footnote.

Ghose, “Negotiating the CTBT,” 140.

Arundhati Ghose, “Statement in Explanation of Vote by Ms. Arundhati Ghose” (speech, New

York, NY, September 10, 1996), Federation of American Scientists, available at <http://fas.org/news/in-

dia/1996/ctbt_UN_september_10_96.htm>.

See, for example, DAWN.COM, Pakistan Rearms Commitment to N-test Moratorium, June

15, 2016, available at <www.dawn.com/news/1264952/pakistan-rearms-commitment-to-n-test-mora-

torium/print>.

See, for example, Nasim Zehra, “Pakistan and the CTBT” (undated), available at <www.

defencejournal.com/oct99/pak-ctbt.htm>.

See, for example, CTBTO Newsroom, “Prime Minster Netanyahu: ‘Proud’ to have

signed CTBT,[and] ‘never had a problem with the CTBT,’” available at <https://newsroom.ctbto.

org/2014/03/20/prime-minister-netanyahu-proud-to-have-signed-ctbt-never-had-a-problem-with-the-

ctbt/>.

Bhutto’s widely quoted remark can be found at the Nuclear reat Initiative’s analysis of Paki-

stan’s nuclear program, available at <www.nti.org/learn/countries/pakistan/nuclear/>.

India previously tested in 1974. India insists that the 1974 test was for “peaceful” purposes.

An excellent discussion of the domestic and international issues that impacted India’s deci-

sionmaking can be found at Dinshaw Mistry, “Domestic‐International Linkages: India and the Compre-

hensive Test Ban Treaty,” e Nonproliferation Review 6, no. 1 (1998), 25‒38.

See Ghose, “Negotiating the CTBT,” 239‒261. 239.

WMD Center Case Study 7

About the Author

Maurice A. Mallin has over 25 years of professional experience working on nuclear secu-

rity and proliferation-related issues. He is currently the Department of Energy (DOE)/National

Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Faculty Chair in the College of International Security

Aairs at the National Defense University. Mr. Mallin also supports the Center for the Study of

Weapons of Mass Destruction, where he contributes to eorts related to nuclear security, pro-

liferation, and deterrence policy. At NNSA, Mr. Mallin was the Director of Strategic Planning

for the Oce of Nonproliferation and Arms Control, where he led studies on over-the-horizon

nuclear security threats and challenges and other related eorts. Mr. Mallin also directed the

Oce of Global Security and Engagement and Cooperation, where he oversaw export control

and safeguard outreach programs, as well as the Global Initiative for Proliferation Prevention.

He also served as NNSA’s interagency representative to the Global Partnership. Mr. Mallin was

a Senior Policy Advisor in NNSA’s Oce of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation, and in 2008,

he served as DOE’s Senior Representative to the Commission on the Prevention of Weapon of

Mass Destruction (“Graham Commission”).

Prior to joining NNSA, Mr. Mallin worked at the Department of State and the Arms Con-

trol and Disarmament Agency. He was a Senior Advisor to the Undersecretary of State and di-

rectly supported numerous international negotiations including the Nuclear Non-Proliferation

Treaty, Fissile Material Cuto Treaty, and Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). In

that capacity, Mr. Mallin supported CTBT negotiations in Washington, DC, and Geneva, and

led the Working Group in Washington that developed the CTBT’s policy and guidelines for

implementing on-site inspections, including its managed access provisions.

Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction

Case Study Series

Case Study 2

U.S. Withdrawal from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty

by Lynn F. Rusten

January 2010

Case Study 3

The Origins of Nunn-Lugar and Cooperative Threat Reduction

by Paul I. Bernstein and Jason D. Wood

April 2010

Case Study 4

U.S. Ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention

by Jonathan B. Tucker

December 2011

Case Study 5

The Presidential Nuclear Initiatives of 1991–1992

by Susan J. Koch

September 2012

Case Study 6

e International Atomic Energy Agency’s Decision to

Find Iran in Non-Compliance, 2002–2006

by Nima Gerami and Pierre Goldschmidt

For additional information, including requests for publications and instructor’s notes,

please visit the Center Web site at <http://wmdcenter.ndu.edu>.

Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction

National Defense University