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Evolution of CTBT

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April 27, 2020

What is the issue?

  • Suspicions were recently raised in the U.S. on China violating the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).
  • In this backdrop, here is an overview of the evolution of the CTBT and its effectiveness.

What is CTBT?

  • The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) is the Treaty banning all nuclear explosions - everywhere, by everyone.
  • The Treaty was negotiated at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva and adopted by the United Nations General Assembly.
  • It was opened for signature on 24 September 1996.
  • The Treaty has not entered into force yet.
  • [The signature to a treaty indicates that the country accepts the treaty.
  • The ratification symbolizes the official sanction of a treaty to make it legally binding for the government of a country.]
  • The CTBT is essentially a “zero-yield” treaty.
  • This means that the agreement prohibits all nuclear explosions that produce a self-sustaining, supercritical chain reaction of any kind whether for weapons or peaceful purposes.

How has banning nuclear testing evolved?

  • For decades, a ban on nuclear testing was seen as the necessary first step towards curbing the nuclear arms race.
  • But Cold War politics made it impossible.
  • A Partial Test Ban Treaty was concluded in 1963 banning underwater and atmospheric tests but this only drove testing underground.
  • By the time the CTBT negotiations began in Geneva in 1994, global politics had changed.
  • The Cold War had ended and the nuclear arms race was over.
  • The USSR had broken up and its principal testing site, Semipalatinsk, was in Kazakhstan (Russia still had access to Novaya Zemlya near the Arctic circle).
  • In 1991, Russia declared a unilateral moratorium on testing, followed by the U.S. in 1992.
  • By this time, the U.S. had conducted 1,054 tests and Russia, 715.

What were the challenges in the process?

  • Negotiations on nuclear test ban were often contentious.
  • France and China continued testing, claiming that they had conducted far fewer tests and needed to validate new designs.
  • They argued that the CTBT did not imply an end to nuclear deterrence.
  • France and the U.S. even exploited the idea of a CTBT that would permit testing at a low threshold, below 500 tonnes of TNT (trinitrotoluene) equivalent.
  • This was one-thirtieth of the “Little Boy”, the bomb that U.S. dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.
  • Civil society and the non-nuclear weapon states reacted negatively to such an idea and it was dropped.
  • Some countries proposed permanently shutting down all test sites as the best way to verify a comprehensive test ban.
  • This was unwelcome to the nuclear weapon states.

What was the U.S-proposed idea then?

  • The U.S. came up with the idea of defining the “comprehensive test ban” as a “zero yield” test ban.
  • This would prohibit supercritical hydro-nuclear tests but not sub-critical hydrodynamic nuclear tests.
  • [Hydronuclear experiments, as distinguished from hydrodynamic ones, use actual fissile material assembled to form a supercritical mass in which a chain reaction be-gins.
  • Dynamic experiments are used to gain information on the physical properties and dynamic behavior of materials used in nuclear weapons.]
  • Once the UK and France agreed, the U.S. was able to prevail upon Russia and China to accept this understanding.
  • This was a moment of the U.S.’s unipolar supremacy.
  • The Clinton administration in the U.S. announced a science-based nuclear Stockpile Stewardship and Management Program.
  • This was a generously funded project to keep the nuclear laboratories in business and the Pentagon happy.
  • Accordingly, the CTBT prohibits all parties from carrying out “any nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion.”
  • The above terms are neither defined nor elaborated.

Why does CTBT lack authority?

  • Another controversy arose regarding the entry-into-force provisions (Article 14) of the treaty.
  • India’s proposals for anchoring the CTBT in a disarmament framework did not find acceptance.
  • In June 1996, India announced its decision to withdraw from the negotiations.
  • Unhappy at this turn, the U.K., China and Pakistan took the lead in revising the entry-into-force provisions.
  • The new provisions listed 44 countries by name whose ratification was necessary for the treaty to enter into force and included India.
  • India protested that this attempt violated a country’s sovereign right to decide if it wanted to join a treaty; but this was ignored.
  • The CTBT was adopted by a majority vote and opened for signature.
  • Of the 44 listed countries, to date only 36 have ratified the treaty.
  • China, Egypt, Iran, Israel and the U.S. have signed but not ratified.
  • China maintains that it will only ratify it after the U.S. does so but the Republican dominated Senate in the U.S. had rejected it in 1999.
  • In addition, North Korea, India and Pakistan are the three who have not signed.
  • All three have also undertaken tests after 1996; India and Pakistan in May 1998 and North Korea six times between 2006 and 2017.
  • The CTBT has, therefore, not entered into force yet, and lacks legal authority.

What role does CTBTO play?

  • Despite the above, an international organisation to verify the CTBT was established in Vienna.
  • This, the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organisation (CTBTO), functions with a staff of about 230 persons and an annual budget of $130 million.
  • Ironically, the U.S. is the largest contributor with a share of $17 million.
  • The CTBTO runs an elaborate verification system built around a network of over 325 seismic, radionuclide, infrasound and hydroacoustic (underwater) monitoring stations.

 

Source: The Hindu

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