Emporium Current Essays

175

CTIT^ A f OB

ABU-NUCLEAR STATI

After two and a half years of complex negotiations, the Geneva-based Conference on
Disarmament (CD) has produced the text of a Comprehensive Test Ban (CTB) Treaty that
would permanently end all nuclear testing. Although almost all of the conference's 60
participating states support the text, the CD failed to reach the required consensus on the
treaty due to Indian opposition and was unable to forward it to the United Nations.
Despite these procedural problems, the overwhelming support for a test ban will almost
certainly result in a treaty based on this text in the not too distant future.

The CTBT would apply to the five nuclear weapons states (Britain, China, France, Russia
and the United States), all of whichever now endorsed the text, the existing prohibition on
nuclear explosions covering the 177 non-nuclear-weapon states that are members of the
nuclear lion-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The test ban would also cover the three nuclear
"threshold" states, India, Israel and Pakistan, the only non-NPT member states that have
the technical capability to conduct a nuclear explosion -- because as drafted the treaty
cannot enter into force without their ratification. Israel has endorsed the present text, but
India has rejected the draft treaty and Pakistan will probably not join until India does.

The treaty prohibits "any nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion,"
but does not explicitly define a "nuclear explosion," a major stumbling block in previous
negotiations. The negotiating history, however, makes clear that his provision establishes
the zero-yield criteria proposed by PresidentClinton. The treaty therefore bans very low ?
ield "hydronuclear" tests and other "small" yield explosftffts- initially advocated by the
nuclear-weapon states.

The CD negotiations cap 40 years of effort to achieve a comprehensive test ban. There
were serious, but unsuccessful, efforts during the Eisenhower, Kennedy and Carter
administrations to negotiate a CTB with the Soviet Union and Britain. The 1963 Limited
Test Ban Treaty prohibited all nuclear explosions in the178

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refabrication of a proven design is not a feasible solution to a reliability problem and the
resulting situation really puts the credibility of the US nuclear deterrent in question, the
United States could always exercise its right under Article IX to withdraw from a CTB on
the grounds that "extraordinary events" pertinent to the treaty have threatened its
"supreme interests."
The CTB will establish an elaborate international monitoring system that will be capable
of detecting militarily significant nuclear explosions world-wide and conducting on-sitc
inspections of suspicious events. This system of seismic, radionuclide, any hydroacoustic
facilities will be augmented by the very powerful national technical means (NTM) of
unilateral intelligence collection currently operated by the United States and other
countries.

In the event there is evidence pointing to the possibility that a nuclear explosion has
occurred, the treaty allows for on-sitc inspections of area where the suspicious event
occurred. Requests for on-site inspections can be based on information collected by the
IMS and/or by NTM, which may also provide information that there was evidence of test
preparations. Although at least 30 of the 51 members of the treaty's Executive Council
members will be
7 required to approve an on-site inspection, this approval should not be difficult to obtain
if there is a strong case.

Some critics of a test ban have argued that even with these extensive and reinforcing
verification systems, a complete ban on nuclear explosions cannot be verified at low
yields. While it is true that nuclear explosions at very low yields will be difficult to
detect, a potential violator would" run the risk that the activity might be detected,
particularly with the aid of NTM information, which would provide the basis for an
inspection. More significantly, very small explosions offer such negligible technical
benefits and risk much significant political consequences that there would be little
incentive to conduct them. Moreover, even if such tests were , undetected, they would not
constitute a threat to US or international security because of their limited value in a
weapons programme.

The CTB still faces a serious obstacle because of the treaty's rigid entry cannot enter, into
force until it has been signed and ratified by the five nuclear-weapon states, the three
threshold states and 36 other named countries that are both participating embers of the
expanded CD and are listed by the International Atomic Energy Agency as possessing
nuclear power and research reactors. This stringent requirement was insisted on by China,
Russia and Britain, ostensibly to pressure India into joining the treaty. However, in light

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179

of India's decision not to sign the CTB, this provision appears to make it highly unlikely
that the treaty will enter into force at least for the next several years.

If all 44 states have not ratified the treaty within three years of signature, a conference of
states that have already deposited their instruments of ratification can be held "to decide
by consensus what measures consistent with international law may be undertaken to
accelerate the ratification process." This conference, however, docs not have the authority
to waive the original entry into force provision requiring ratification by all 44 states. At
this time, its is nuclear what steps the international community may be prepared to take to
revise this provision or to bring the treaty provisionally into force despite this explicit
procedural barrier.

The entry into force problem and India's refusal to sign the treaty should not obscure the
historic significance of the fact that the five nuclear-weapon states have endorsed the
current draft CTB Treaty and have, for the first time, simultaneously instituted a
moratorium on nuclear testing. Israel has also announced its intention to sign the treaty,
and Pakistan has indicated its willingness to sign if India does. While India will not sign
the CTB in the near future, New Delhi will find it very difficult to test in the face of
almost universal support of a global ban. Consequently, even if the CTB does not
formally enter into force for several years, the CD has already produced a de facto ban on
nuclear testing - which after signature will become de jure for the signatories under the
Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. Thus, the CTB will establish a new
international norm against nuclear testing, even if India and others choose for the time
being not to adhere to the formal agreement.