Following the United Nations Security Council’s adoption on Sept. 23 of a resolution encouraging nations to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, Republicans lambasted what Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) called a “toothless resolution” while Democrats lauded its passage as key in reaffirming global norms against nuclear testing.
The nonbinding resolution, adopted in a 14-0 vote with Egypt abstaining, encourages holdout nations to sign or ratify the treaty and calls for an end to nuclear testing worldwide until such a global prohibition is achieved.
The United States is among eight nations that must still ratify the treaty for it to enter into force; the others are China, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, North Korea, and Pakistan. Although the U.S. Senate rejected treaty ratification in 1999, the country has maintained a moratorium on nuclear testing for over two decades.
Ahead of the Security Council action, congressional Republicans introduced legislation in both chambers that would strip U.S. funding for the CTBT Organization’s Preparatory Commission in the event that any binding measures are placed on the United States. Cotton introduced the Senate bill, which was referred to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) introduced the House version, which was referred to the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Cotton said in his Sept. 23 statement that “had my colleagues and I not vowed to defund the U.N. agency tasked with compromising our ability to maintain our nuclear weapons arsenal, President Obama would have used the U.N. Security Council to circumvent the constitutional treaty process and greatly harm our ability to deter nuclear-armed adversaries.”
Administration officials had said consistently that any Security Council resolution would be nonbinding.
According to Cotton, “Americans understand that decisions regarding our ability to deter nuclear war, protect Americans, and stand up for our allies should be left to the U.S. Congress, not the United Nations.”
“This legislation is clear – matters relating to nuclear deterrence and national security should be the job of Congress, not an unaccountable, international body,” Wilson said earlier this week in prepared remarks, calling the Security Council resolution “meaningless.”
In his widely noted April 2009 speech in Prague, President Barack Obama pledged that his administration would “immediately and aggressively pursue U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.” Obama never formally submitted the treaty for Senate consideration, with senior officials saying instead they were first pursuing efforts to inform lawmakers and the public on the treaty’s benefits and the U.S. capability to maintain a safe, secure, and reliable nuclear deterrent without explosive testing.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said in his own statement that the Obama administration “has done next to nothing over the past seven and a half years to persuade Senators today that this treaty deserves ratification any more than when the Senate spoke clearly 17 years ago.”
Meanwhile, John Garamendi (D-Calif.), Rick Larsen (D-Wash.), and Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.) issued a joint statement noting that the nonbinding resolution is not a substitute for Senate ratification of the treaty.
States’ national moratoria against explosive testing, they said, “promote international stability and constrain the development of new nuclear weapons.”
The statement recognized the work of the CTBTO in operating the international monitoring system that detects nuclear explosions worldwide. “Attempts to undermine or withhold US contributions from the CTBTO threaten the international community’s ability to monitor destabilizing tests in countries like North Korea and are counterproductive to US national security interests,” the statement said.
