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Status of U.S. Signature. Because President Bush
has not withdrawn the
CTBT from the Senate, the U.S. signature on the treaty remains
valid as an expression of U.S. support for the CTBT. Two-thirds of
the Senate must vote to send the treaty back to the president for
disposal or to ratify it; neither action is likely. Under customary
international law, a country that has signed but not yet ratified
a treaty is bound not to take actions that would undermine its fundamental
purposes, unless and until it withdraws from the treaty. Although
not legally binding, this interpretation places a continuing political
restraint on the resumption of U.S. nuclear testing.
Testing Moratorium. The five countries recognized as nuclear
weapon states under the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) have adhered to an informal, voluntary moratorium
(temporary halt) on nuclear testing since July 1996, when
China conducted its last test. The Soviet Union conducted its last
test in 1990, followed by the United Kingdom in 1991, the United
States in 1992, and France in January 1996. India and Pakistan announced a testing moratorium
after their May 1998 nuclear tests. Israel is not known to have
conducted a nuclear test. Although the Bush administration opposes
the CTBT, it supports continuation of the testing moratorium.
In
February 2002, U.S. officials reiterated that the United States
has
no
plans to conduct new nuclear tests. The Bush administration,
however, has sought funds to permit the
resumption of nuclear testing in less than one year. Currently, it would take two to three years to complete preparations for the resumption of
testing. In May
2002, the Bush administration presented evidence of
possible Russian preparations to resume nuclear testing on the
island of Novaya Zemlya,
the primary Russian testing site. The Russian government
denied any improper actions, saying that the test site is used
only for
sub-critical tests, as permitted under the CTBT.
Previous Russian officials, however, have expressed concern about
the reliability and safety of the Russian nuclear stockpile, and
about the continuing loss of nuclear test specialists from Novaya Zemlya
since the start of the moratorium in 1992.
CTBT and Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty (FMCT). The CTBT imposes qualitative
limits on the ability of a state to develop and produce new nuclear explosive
devices. Those limits are a significant part of the effort to end the nuclear
arms race and move toward nuclear disarmament, as called for in the NPT (Article
VI). A test ban is normally associated with another key element in the process
of nuclear disarmament, namely a ban on the production of fissile
material for anything other than verified peaceful uses. Such a ban would
impose a quantitative limit on the amount of nuclear material available for
weapons use. That objective is the basis for an initiative at the
Conference on Disarmament (CD) to
negotiate a treaty banning further production of fissile material for weapons
purposes — the
Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty (FMCT). Although the CTBT and the FMCT can
each stand on its own, together the two measures are key components of the
nuclear control regime and provide the foundation for eventual nuclear
disarmament. The Bush administration claims to support negotiations of an FMCT;
however, it opposes negotiating an effectively verifiable treaty with an
inspection program. The United States claims that inspections would be costly
and would jeopardize national security interests. In November 2004, the United
States was the only country to vote against a
UN General Assembly Resolution
calling for the start of negotiations on an FMCT.
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Further Reading:
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CRS, Jonathan Medalia,
"Nuclear Weapons: Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty" |
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Arms Control Association,
The Nuclear Testing Tally |
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Daryl Kimball,
"Trust, but Don't Verify" |
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U.S. State Department,
Fissile
Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT) |
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Oxford Research Group/BASIC, "The
Importance of a Fissile Material Treaty" |
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Disarmament Diplomacy, Jean du
Preez,
"The Fissban: Time for Renewed Commitment or a New Approach?" |
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Disarmament
Diplomacy, Daryl Kimball,
"Keeping Test Ban Hopes Alive: The 2005 CTBT Entry-Into-Force
Conference" |
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