The U.N. Security Council on Friday adopted a resolution encouraging entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and urging nations to refrain from any nuclear explosive blasts while they wait for the global prohibition to be enacted.
There was no indication that the resolution places any binding commitments on nations. Republicans in Congress earlier this week introduced legislation in both chambers that would strip all U.S. funding for the treaty’s verification organization should any such measures be placed on the United States.
“The resolution that we have the opportunity to adopt this morning is a strong and necessary statement of our principles and promises as a global community,” Secretary of State John Kerry said during the Security Council session. “It reaffirms the de facto norm … in the world today against nuclear testing. It acknowledges the legitimate interests of states that fully and faithfully renounce nuclear weapons receive assurances against the threat of the use of nuclear weapons and that those assurances will be upheld.”
With an eye toward Capitol Hill, Kerry emphasized that the resolution imposes no legal ban on nuclear testing and does not require any government to adopt new reporting requirements.
The 1996 treaty is intended to promote nonproliferation by preventing nations from taking a key step in the development of a new or better nuclear arsenal. The Senate rejected ratification in 1999, but the United States has maintained a voluntary moratorium on testing since the George H.W. Bush administration.
The treaty has 183 signatories and has been ratified by 166 nations. But it must be ratified by 44 “Annex 2” nations to enter into force. The eight holdouts are China, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, and the United States. North Korea is the sole nation in this century to have conducted nuclear tests, most recently its fifth and largest underground detonation earlier this month.
President Barack Obama never carried through with his 2009 pledge to bring the treaty back before the Senate for consideration. With time running out in his presidency, he instead looked to the Security Council for a means of strengthening the test ban regime.
The Security Council adopted the new resolution in a 14-0 decision, with Egypt abstaining. The document:
- Calls on all holdout nations “without further delay” to sign or ratify the treaty, particularly the eight whose ratification is mandatory for entry into force.
- Encourages all treaty signatories to push for treaty universality and entry into force.
- Calls for nations to refrain from nuclear explosions of any kind, and to sustain their national moratoria on such nuclear tests, while noting that such measures “do not have the same permanent and legally binding effect as entry into force of the treaty.”
- Emphasizes the importance of sustaining momentum to completing all components of the treaty verification regime, which will encompass more than 300 sensor stations deployed around the world.
- Highlights that the treaty’s entry into force “will contribute to the enhancement of international peace and security through its effective prevention of the proliferation of nuclear weapons in all its aspects and through its contribution to nuclear disarmament.”
Even with the Security Council’s strong support for the resolution, members made it clear that there was not full agreement on the language. New Zealand, for example, noted its disappointment that language promoting global nuclear disarmament was not included in the document.
Republicans in the House and Senate on Tuesday filed bills that would prohibit U.S. funding in support of the Preparatory Commission for the CTBT Organization if the U.N. Security Council adopted any resolution imposing binding measures on the United States regarding nuclear testing.
The nearly identical bills in both chambers say “No United States funds may be made available to the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty if, on or after September 16, 2016, the United Nations Security Council adopts a resolution that obligates the United States or affirms a purported obligation of the United States to refrain from actions that would run counter to the object and purpose of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban-Treaty.”
The United States annually provides about $32 million for the CTBT verification body, according to a Sept. 8 letter from 33 GOP senators to Obama that made the same funding threat. That is about a quarter of the organization’s yearly budget, the lawmakers said.
There was no immediate response to the bills from the White House.
Republicans have expressed concern that the Obama administration could exploit another accord the United States has not ratified, the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, to effectively impose a binding mandate on the United States and skirt the Senate’s constitutional role in approval of U.S. membership in international treaties.
The bill from Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), which has 11 co-sponsors, was referred to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The House version, introduced by Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) and co-sponsored by Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), was referred to the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
There was no immediate comment from Cotton or Wilson on the Security Council’s adoption of the resolution.
