The nearly comprehensive global moratoria on nuclear explosive testing will remain fragile in the absence of a legally binding prohibition on such activities, Lassina Zerbo, executive secretary of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), warned this week during a trip to Washington, D.C.
“If there is no entry into force, voluntary or unilateral moratoria serve nothing,” he said in an interview. “If you don’t have a legally binding framework, what you have is fragile; it falls apart anytime. That’s why we need entry into force of the CTBT.”
Zerbo participated in a series of meetings and events on nuclear explosive testing and the CTBT, where he emphasized the need for ongoing U.S. support to his organization as it continues to seek global ratification of a nuclear testing ban. His visit included a Wednesday event on Capitol Hill dedicated to scientific innovation in nuclear explosion monitoring.
The CTBTO is establishing a global verification regime, the International Monitoring System, which consists of hundreds of monitoring stations worldwide to detect underground nuclear tests. The United States, one of eight nations that must ratify the treaty for it to enter into force, contributes roughly $32 million per year to the CTBTO budget. The U.S. has maintained an informal moratorium on nuclear testing since the early 1990s.
Zerbo, who earlier this month was reappointed to a second term as executive secretary, spoke with NS&D Monitor about goals and challenges that lie ahead for treaty ratification and development of the International Monitoring System, expressing optimism for future U.S. support for the CTBTO under the incoming Trump presidential administration. The interview below has been edited for length and clarity.
What would you highlight as your biggest achievement during this term and what are your goals for the remainder of your service as head of CTBTO?
It’s always difficult to talk about achievement, but I think one of the things my team and I have tried to do over the first term was to keep the CTBT issue relevant, and try to expand the International Monitoring System by getting to some of the difficult places where we couldn’t get stations. We managed to get a station going in Argentina, in Ecuador, in the Galapagos Islands, to get the Chinese to transmit data to the International Data Center, and we are certifying the first station in China in the next couple of weeks before the end of the year – that’s quite a milestone.
The 20th anniversary of the treaty has helped raise the profile of the organization and the treaty itself, in many aspects by inviting many high-level people to talk about the issue, like the U.N. secretary general and about 20 to 30 ministers who joined us in Vienna on June 13 to discuss the issue of the [CTBT] and the necessity of entry into force. So all along, let me say that we managed to make the CTBT one of the priority issues in 2016 and the [Integrated Field Exercise 2014 in Jordan] in terms of the capability of on-site inspections, we improved the International Data Center, the performance of the system, and let’s not forget – last but not least – the fact that [North Korea] tested twice in the same year and we were able to deal with it to the expectations of state signatories. I think those are basically what we’ve done in the first term and are still continuing to do.
In remarks earlier this week you mentioned you’ve had some interesting discussions with the U.S. State Department during this trip. Can you tell me more about those discussions?
The discussion with the State Department was mainly on how to interact with the [President-elect Donald Trump] transition team as we move on to the next administration, and where the CTBT fits in that prospect. The problem is right now nothing is clear, because they are still in discussions, but the main point is to see how we can give a convincing argument to secure U.S. funding to the International Monitoring System and the International Data Center.
It was basically to set the tone for how the support for the CTBT could look with the new administration, and then to insist on the fact that the technical aspects that feed the treaty should be the basis of discussion with everyone – meaning what we saw today [at the Capitol Hill event], the investment, the importance of sustaining what was invested, and then the fact that what we have put together over the past 20 years at the CTBTO [Preparatory Commission] basically serves not only U.S. national security but also international security. I think today we had strong advocacy on this issue, talking about how we contribute to complementing U.S. national technical means, and I think that’s what we will try to use for advocacy to get the support from any administration in the U.S. – because it’s not a partisan issue, it’s an issue of national security interests and international security.
Were they optimistic as well about pushing for CTBT ratification [in the next administration]?
I think the fact that we are able to hold this event today gives a basis to the next administration to build upon. Depending on which way they go, they know now that, for instance, what was at stake in 1999 that led to no [U.S. Senate] consent for CTBT ratification . . . is basically dealt with today. So as [acting Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security] Tom Countryman in his closing remarks said, there is no relevant impediment today to the U.S. considering CTBT ratification because all the issues of 1999 are dealt with.
[Reporter’s note: The U.S. Senate rejected CTBT ratification in 1999, arguing that existing technology could not ensure treaty verifiability.]
U.S. lawmakers who oppose ratification say that U.S. capabilities through national technical means are enough to detect nuclear testing; they argue the IMS may not be necessary. What’s your assessment of this view?
First of all, the IMS is more than necessary to the U.S. because the U.S. only has 15 countries where there are monitoring facilities; we have 90. And we cover worldwide; the U.S. has its bilateral technical partnerships with countries where they have a station, but they don’t cover the globe. So you move from 15 countries where they have bilateral agreements to 90, nearly 100 countries where we have coverage. We basically supplement what the U.S. has in terms of its bilateral agreements.
So how does that reflect the reality on the ground? Take some of the recent events in D.P.R.K.: if you take the first test in 2016, we had a situation where 50 days later our monitoring system detected a radioisotope that could, by atmospheric transport modeling, and the ratio of the two isotopes that were detected, lead it to the Korean Peninsula. The U.S. wasn’t able to do that. That was information that came from the CTBT International Monitoring System, so that gives an indication that the IMS is not close to being useless to what the U.S. has; it complements what the U.S. has. That’s technically.
But politically, the world is different today than what it was 20 years ago, 50 years ago. It is difficult to have a country, be it the U.S., France, U.K., China, Russia, to say: we detected something, and then we want the world to believe us. You heard about capacity-building – one of the beauties of our International Monitoring System is to be able to provide to everyone, to the international community, the technical means and technical specs for them to verify compliance with the [CTBT], so that no violator of the treaty will go unnoticed. But if no violator of the treaty can go unnoticed, you need a credible, international legitimate framework for people to take that at face value. You cannot have an individual or a country say we saw something, and this is what we want the international community to believe. And that’s why the International Monitoring System of the CTBT is so important.
The third point is that the CTBT is important and its entry into force even more so, because today in this 21st century we have one country that does tests and says they did it. If you face the situation where it’s a hidden test, we have no other mechanism and no country in the world can be able to say we saw it, and we can prove it. What we’re missing, if we don’t see a radionuclide isotope, is the on-site inspection capability, which we cannot exercise in the absence of entry into force of the CTBT.
Some U.S. officials worry that the scientists with the technical knowledge to build new nuclear weapons are retiring out of the U.S. nuclear enterprise, meaning the U.S. might lose some capabilities in designing new weapons if necessary. Some argue that the Stockpile Stewardship Program may not be enough and have called for a return to weapon design competitions between labs, with the goal of creating a prototype weapon to be tested without nuclear yield. Are you concerned that this could indicate a return to nuclear testing for the U.S.?
First of all, let me make a distinction between the lab tests and the CTBT; this is very important. CTBT doesn’t include nonexplosive testing. Nevertheless, all the programs with nonexplosive testing are said to be meant for maintaining the safety and reliability of the stockpile. You heard me mentioning modernization; modernization in my jargon means improvement. And improvement is not what the U.S. claims they do. They say no, we want to maintain the reliability and safety of our stockpile until that time when nuclear weapons don’t exist. As long as they exist, we want to make sure our nuclear arsenal is safe and secure and reliable – so we’re not building modern weapons, we’re maintaining our weapons to the point that they can still be detonated as long as nuclear weapons exist. This is what we’re hearing.
But this is a message that doesn’t go softly in the ears of other countries, the G77 [group of developing U.N. countries], and that’s why we need more communication for people to know that what the U.S. is doing is to help advance the science of nuclear test monitoring. At the same time, they’re doing their stockpile stewardship for reliability and safety; they want to make sure that they’ve mastered the technology to help not only themselves but also the international community to detect any violation in regard to nuclear test explosion.
So does that mean that while they’re doing this, they want to make sure they can develop new weapons in labs, which is the point that you’re making? I would hope that in making sure that we have a deterrent that would stop anyone from testing, we’re moving slowly beyond the nonproliferation aspect to disarmament – and if we’re moving to disarmament, there is no need to make weapons in labs. There is a process that has to be taken care of that sometimes we miss, because we see different aspects of detection, different aspect of science, different aspect of research – everyone picks one aspect and says because of this, we don’t trust our neighbor. And this is what’s happening with the labs.
As the head of the CTBT, without being naïve, I want to be able to trust countries like the United States in their effort to pursue advancement of science with regard to nuclear test explosion, and to be mindful that as we get assurance that there is no proliferation, we prepare ourselves for disarmament. This is what I want to believe in. And this is a process why the secretary general of the United Nations was basically saying what I’ve been saying, that a world free of nuclear weapons goes by entry into force of the [CTBT]. A nuclear-weapon-free world goes by the entry into force of a nuclear-test-free world, and a nuclear-test-free world is the [CTBT] in force.
And your question leads me to the final point, which is – why do we need the ratification of the CTBT? We need it because it’s so fragile today. Everything can fall apart, you heard it. If we’re not careful, 60 years of science and technology can fall apart. It takes one, two, three, four, five countries to say, look, because this thing is not going anywhere, we don’t want to contribute a station for the International Monitoring System.
You made an interesting point about how this issue is tied to disarmament. The U.S.-Russian bilateral relationship in this area has not been in a good place recently. What is the CTBTO’s perspective on engaging, or re-engaging, Russia on nuclear security, nonproliferation, and disarmament?
You heard me saying in some of my early speeches . . . I said Russia is a good student of the [CTBT] because they have signed and ratified the treaty, they are a P5 country under the [Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty], and then they push to promote entry into force of the CTBT. Russia may want to use the CTBT as leverage with others to say look, we’ve signed, we’re proving that we will never carry nuclear test explosions because we’ve signed and ratified the CTBT.
But they often say, I’m a fisherman – when fish fight, I just want to catch. So this is basically the situation I’m in. You see your interest in any aspect they take to make their fight, and then you catch the fruit. That’s basically where I am, so I think the United States and Russia would gain a lot in considering the CTBT together, especially with China when dealing with North Korea. I think China needs to come into play for us, for the three countries to deal with North Korea, so that we have not only a moratorium on nuclear testing, but also an agreement that North Korea will not conduct nuclear testing by them considering signature of the [CTBT].
How is CTBTO planning to bring these three countries together?
That was my dream when we were doing the 20th anniversary [of the CTBT] in Vienna. I wanted all those countries to come, including North Korea – I invited them. But one of the problems of the CTBT is that people have been too far hesitant . . . you know what we did today, I wish we had done it two years ago. What we did today, had we done it two years ago, we would have advanced a lot in terms of the educational campaign, especially here and beyond, for the [CTBT]. It’s a great event, it helps people advocate, but the timing could have been way ahead.
Then why did this happen now and not two years ago?
You may want to ask the U.S.
Considering North Korea is the only country currently testing, and taking into account the informal moratoria on nuclear testing in the U.S. and other countries, what is the single most important aspect that a legally binding treaty would change?
The fragility – if there is no entry into force, voluntary or unilateral moratoria serve nothing. If you don’t have a legally binding framework, what you have is fragile; it falls apart anytime. That’s why we need entry into force of the CTBT.
