Operationalizing Test-Ban Treaty Could Be ‘Circuit Breaker’ in Deadlock to Rid World of Nuclear Weapons, Secretary-General Tells States Parties Conference
United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, addressing the Conference on Facilitating the Entry into Force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) today, said he was determined to live up to his name — “Ban” — and ban nuclear tests as an essential component of ridding the world of those weapons.
Opening the ninth such conference nearly two decades after the Treaty was negotiated, Mr. Ban said that there were now 164 States parties, but without ratification by all 44 so-called “Annex 2” States, the Treaty could not enter into force. To the eight remaining States, he said: “You have a special responsibility and you must not wait for others to act before ratifying.”
A breakthrough was long overdue, he said, urging “every person in this room” to show leadership on the urgent international imperative of ending nuclear tests. The inability of the States parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) this year to reach consensus on an outcome had exposed the “stark differences” in position and was a clear reminder of the urgent need to bridge those divides.
The CTBT represented common ground, he said, and operationalizing it would be a “circuit breaker” to end the current stagnation. By ratifying it, States would prove their willingness to back words with action. There was no sickness greater than nuclear testing without an end, he said, calling for an end to that sickness once and for all, and for the ushering in of a nuclear-weapon-free world.
The call by States parties was no less strong, as they adopted a Final Declaration containing measures to promote the Treaty’s entry into force. They affirmed that a universal and effectively verifiable Treaty was a fundamental instrument in the field of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, and they urged all States to remain seized of the issue at the highest political level.
The text reiterated that the cessation of all nuclear weapon test explosions and all other nuclear explosions — by constraining the development and qualitative improvement of nuclear weapons and ending the development of new types of nuclear weapons — constitutes an effective measure of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation in all its aspects. Pending the Treaty’s entry into force, States parties call on all States to maintain an existing moratorium on testing.
The States parties set out “concrete and actionable” steps towards that end, stating that no efforts should be spared and all avenues open to them should be used to encourage further signature and ratification. All States were encouraged to contribute to the completion of the verification regime through technical and political support to the Vienna-based Provisional Technical Secretariat of the CTBTO, the organization tasked with monitoring compliance through, among others, its vast network of seismic stations and on-site inspections.
Annexed to the Declaration is the status of signature and ratification, State-by-State, including a breakdown of the Annex 2 States, indicating that ratification is still required by China, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, Pakistan and the United States in order for the Treaty to enter into force.
Speaking as Co-Chair of the Conference, Erlan A. Idrissov, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan said that the focus must be on getting those eight Annex 2 countries “on board”. He said he would be straightforward and even at times “undiplomatic” in his efforts. Nothing had been achieved on the CTBT in 20 years, yet the eight countries, for different reasons, looked at each other and hesitated in joining the Treaty.
Kazakhstan, he said, had discovered that it had 1,400 nuclear warheads on its territory, along with sophisticated delivery systems, and had decided to rid itself of those weapons in order to help the world become safer. That strategic decision had inspired others and opened the world to a visionary approach to becoming nuclear-weapon-free.
Japan’s Foreign Minister, Fumio Kishida, also co-chairing the Conference, said the CTBT, by constraining the development of and qualitative improvement to nuclear weapons, had brought an end to the nuclear arms race and the testing that had been taking place almost every month and every year in the world during the cold war. Though not yet in force, the Treaty had indisputably contributed to enhancing the norm of the nuclear test ban.
In the day-long debate, many speakers, representing their Governments at the ministerial level, called the Treaty an “essential pillar” of international security architecture and urged its entry into force. They welcomed recent ratifications by Angola, Congo and Niue and called on the remaining countries to do likewise without delay or precondition, especially those listed in Annex 2, arguing that those had a particular responsibility and need not wait for others to act.
For its part, the United States had been working to reduce the nuclear threat through the Treaty between the United States and the Russian Federation on measures for the further reduction and limitation of strategic offensive arms and the Nuclear Security Summit, said Antony Blinken, Deputy Secretary of State of that country. It would expand efforts to re-introduce the American public to the Treaty. By pursuing a science-based stockpile stewardship programme, the United States was maintaining deterrent capabilities without nuclear explosive testing. It was working aggressively, he said, to build the case for the Treaty’s ratification. Other Annex 2 countries should be pursuing the same aim. “There is no reason to wait on any country,” he said.
Along similar lines, Olivier Zehnder of Switzerland regretted that little progress had been made in universalizing the Treaty. The “significant misalignment” between nuclear- and non-nuclear-weapon States had been seen in this year’s tough negotiations on the Declaration. He welcomed the introduction of humanitarian consequences in the discourse, as had been seen in Hiroshima and Nagasaki as well as in the more than 2,000 nuclear weapon test explosions conducted around the world, from Semipalatinsk to Nevada. The impacts of those tests on the health of military personnel, as well as on civilians, were well-documented.
On that point, Vadim Smirnov, Deputy Director of the Department for Non-Proliferation and Arms Control, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, said he could not agree with initiatives aimed at making humanitarian aspects the central element of the disarmament agenda, taking it out of the overall strategic context. Such approaches were “extremely dangerous” as they undermined the system of strategic stability.
Moreover, he said, the 2015 NPT Review Conference had revealed disturbing trends that could weaken the non-proliferation regime: unreasonably high expectations regarding disarmament that were “out of touch with reality”; pitting nuclear- and non-nuclear-weapon States against each other; and populist rhetoric about the allegedly discriminatory nature of obligations, which challenged the Treaty’s foundation. The focus should be on substantive work with the eight Annex 2 countries, urging them to reconsider their positions.
Paul Williams, Director, Multilateral Policy, Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom, said the Treaty was clear in its purpose: to end nuclear test explosions. The focus should be on achieving its entry into force and universal support. For its part, the United Kingdom had participated in all CTBTO work, having contributed to the technical development of the verification regime, including the monitoring data centre and on-site inspection. It also had made voluntary contributions to bring experts to technical working groups.
Wang Qun, Director-General, Department of Arms Control and Disarmament, Minsitry of Foreign Affairs of China, said States should face up to the obstacles to entry into force. China had long advocated the prohibition of nuclear weapons, having made a voluntary commitment of “no first use” and non-use against non-nuclear-weapon States. China supported the aims of the Treaty and honoured its moratorium on test explosions. It was working to advance the domestic ratification process and had resolved equipment and technical problems in five monitoring stations. In August, testing and evaluation at those stations had resumed, with monitoring data transmitted in real time to the International Data Centre.
Many countries decried that the 1995 decision to hold a conference on the creation of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East had not been implemented. Hisham Badr, Assistant Foreign Minister for Multilateral Affairs and International Security of Egypt, said the 2015 Review Conference owed its failure to three countries that had unjustifiably blocked consensus. To ask countries to take additional commitments when no efforts were being made to fulfil pending legal obligations to free the Middle East of nuclear weapons was unacceptable. Egypt would continue to support the international disarmament and non-proliferation regime and the balanced implementation of the NPT.
Also today, the Conference adopted its draft report, with the co-chair, Mr. Kishida, explaining that the names of participating States and other information would be added once available. The Conference also adopted the report of its Credentials Committee titled “Credentials of representatives to the Conference on Facilitating the Entry into Force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty” (document CTBT–Art.XIV/2015/5), following its introduction by its Chair.
Additional speakers included ministers and senior officials from Slovakia, Iraq, Slovenia, United States, Guatemala, Belgium, Egypt, Australia, Morocco, Norway, Japan, Italy, Algeria, Iceland, Costa Rica, Republic of Korea, Chile, Brazil, Romania, Spain, China, Peru, Finland, Switzerland, Sudan, Estonia, Canada, Argentina, Mexico, Turkey, Thailand, New Zealand, Latvia, Russian Federation, United Kingdom, Ecuador, Austria, France, Nigeria, Azerbaijan, United Arab Emirates and Malaysia, as well as Luxembourg on behalf of the European Union.
A representative of the Holy See also made an intervention.
A representative of the Arms Control Association also spoke.