After nearly 20 years, the U.S. Senate must undertake a new review of the potential nonproliferation benefits provided by the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, CTBT Organization (CTBTO) Preparatory Commission Executive Secretary Lassina Zerbo and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov wrote in a new commentary in The Diplomat.
The 1996 accord is intended to promote nonproliferation by establishing a global prohibition on a key step in development of nuclear weapons – explosive testing. But it cannot enter into force until ratified by the United States and 43 other “Annex 2” nations, those that had nuclear power or research reactors while participating in negotiations on the treaty.
Senators rejected ratification of the treaty in 1999 during Bill Clinton’s presidency, and no administration since then has put the question back before the upper chamber of Congress. The other holdouts are China, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, North Korea, and Pakistan; only North Korea today conducts explosive nuclear testing.
While the Obama administration never followed through on its commitment to seek Senate advice and consent on the treaty, it did in its final months support a nonbinding U.N. Security Council resolution that in September called for the eight holdout states to ratify the accord “without further delay” and for all governments to avoid nuclear testing.
“It is essential that we translate these words into action. This begins with a reexamination of the assumptions harbored by the eight remaining states for delaying action on their ratification of the treaty,” Zerbo and Ryabkov wrote. “For the United States, this requires a serious review and debate in the Senate about the benefits of the CTBT, and its implications for national and international security. It has been a quarter-century since the last U.S. nuclear test explosion, yet the U.S. Senate has not reviewed the treaty since late-1999.”
In the last 18 years, the U.S. capacity to maintain a viable and safe nuclear deterrent without explosive testing has increased via the Stockpile Stewardship science and engineering program managed by the Department of Energy’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, the two said. They also noted the over 300 operational CTBT sensor stations intended to detect any underground, underwater, or atmospheric nuclear blast.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told senators ahead of his confirmation that the voluntary U.S. nuclear testing moratorium in place since 1991 “has served us well.” However, there has been no sign that the Trump administration would bring the treaty back to Capitol Hill, or that the Republican-controlled Senate would support ratification. In fact, GOP lawmakers in both houses of Congress earlier this year introduced legislation to restrict funding for the CTBTO.
Zerbo told NS&D Monitor by email Thursday that he hopes the commentary and other forms of public diplomacy can promote dialogue with the United States and all holdout nations on the importance of the treaty to international nuclear nonproliferation.
“Here at the CTBTO, we continue our engagement and cooperative work with the United States at various levels, including at the technical level on the operation and maintenance of the International Monitoring System, the International Data Centre, and on the Executive Council,” he stated. “We look forward to the opportunity to provide whatever further information might be necessary to help the new administration evaluate its position on the CTBT.”
The White House and Senate Foreign Relations Committee did not respond by deadline to questions regarding possible reconsideration of the treaty.
In their commentary, Zerbo and Ryabkov emphasized the benefits of bringing the treaty into force. The near-universal global norm against nuclear testing helps ensure that non-nuclear armed nations cannot develop such weapons and nuclear powers would be challenged to develop new armaments, the two wrote.
However, bringing the full weight of the treaty to bear – including authorizing on-site inspections – requires entry into force, they added.
“The nuclear test ban treaty is too important to slowly fade away,” the commentary says. “The world will be a far more dangerous place if states resume nuclear testing.”
