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CTBT: Diplomats Push for Nuclear Test Ban Amid Setbacks By David Ruppe Diplomats from Austria, Finland and Japan have been pressing their counterparts around the globe to support the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by providing their full dues payments or by signing and ratifying the treaty. Last month, the European Union also said it would make demarches to national governments urging them to sign and ratify the pact. Three U.N. disarmament promotion centers stationed in Latin America, Africa and Asia also have received funding from Austria to advocate treaty ratification. The efforts are being made in anticipation of a Vienna conference scheduled for early September to promote the treaty’s entry into force. To take effect, the treaty requires 44 specific countries to ratify the accord, but only 32 have done so. Holdout nations include China, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Vietnam and the United States, which signed the treaty in 1996. In a breakthrough, Algeria deposited its instruments of ratification last week (see GSN, July 17). “We are hopeful that some of the remaining 12 will do it still even before the meeting takes place,” said Tom Groenberg, Finland’s ambassador to the organization responsible for implementing the treaty. India Will Be Absent Despite the recent efforts to promote the treaty, signs suggest that entry into force will not occur soon. In particular, India has indicated that it will not participate in the September conference, Groenberg said. India has previously opposed the treaty, arguing that a nuclear testing ban that was not unaccompanied by progress toward global nuclear disarmament would unfairly help preserve a nuclear weapons advantage for some states. India and Pakistan each conducted nuclear tests in 1998 and are the only nations to conduct such tests since the treaty was opened for signature in 1996. U.S. officials also have indicated they will not send a representative to the conference, saying they should not participate in encouraging other countries to ratify in light of the Bush administration’s expressed opposition to U.S. ratification, Global Security Newswire reported this month (see GSN, July 9). The administration has said the United States might someday need to resume testing to address potential problems with its nuclear warheads stockpile or possibly to test new weapons. Perhaps of greatest concern is North Korea, which is not expected to attend, and which experts suspect might in the coming months attempt a nuclear weapons test explosion to prove it has developed a nuclear weapons capability. “I think there is an urgency today, which is as high today as when the treaty was negotiated in the middle 1990s,” Groenberg said. A North Korean test, he said, “would certainly be a blow and is going to weaken the understanding which has emerged [that] … there is, after all, a moratorium,” he said. Realistically, Groenberg said, the treaty would not likely enter into force in the next three years. Prospects for Additional Successes Seen Still, he and Austrian Ambassador Thomas Stelzer, the current six-month chairman of the treaty’s preparatory commission, see additional areas for near-term success. Some of the remaining holdouts have not ratified simply for technical reasons or “minor issues,” Stelzer said. “There is a very clear technical obstacle in the case of Colombia. It is an internal issue that is about to be resolved,” he said. “Also, in the case of Indonesia, I hear they are also very close to ratifying,” Stelzer added. Other countries, though, may not be as close. “It’s very difficult to believe China would ratify before the United States had ratified,” Stelzer said. According to Groenberg, representatives from Austria, Finland and Japan have approached the Bush administration on the matter. “The administration has made it clear that they are not going to support ratification of the treaty,” Stelzer noted. Israel and Egypt would be likely to follow the U.S. lead on the matter, he said, adding that Iran “has been a little more cautious about ratification until specific neighbors in the region have ratified.” The country stopped sending monitoring station data back to Vienna last year, citing the treaty’s nonratified status, and has not resumed the flow (see GSN, March 8, 2002). With respect to the civil war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, Stelzer said, “my judgment would be it is just a matter of organization. There are different priorities right now.” Pakistan, meanwhile, has indicated it would ratify the treaty as soon as India does, he said. Most critical, Stelzer said, is U.S. ratification. “It’s my own personal view that if the United States ratified, all of the others would ratify,” he said.
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