Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)

The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which opened for signature in 1996, is intended to prohibit all nuclear weapon test explosions. The CTBT has achieved near universal adherence, however, Article XIV of the Treaty requires ratification by 44 named states, before the Treaty can enter into force.

Of these 44 states, three - India, Pakistan, and North Korea - have not signed the Treaty. A further six states - China, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, and the United States - have signed but not ratified the Treaty.

Unfinished Business: the Negotiation of the CTBT and the End of Nuclear Testing, by Dr Rebecca Johnson

Published by UNIDIR, Unfinished Business: the Negotiation of the CTBT and the End of Nuclear Testing, by Rebecca Johnson details how the CTBT was fought for, opposed and finally negotiated. It considers how a decade of political and institutional obstacles have prevented the CTBT from entering into full legal effect, including the Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests of May 1998, the US failure to ratify the treaty in 1999, and the October 9, 2006 nuclear test by North Korea.

The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty remains a key piece of unfinished business of the nuclear age. As a growing number of governments and decisionmakers put forward ideas to move the world toward abolishing nuclear weapons, much can be learned from how the CTBT was fought for, opposed and finally negotiated between 1994 and 1996. The treaty's necessity was underlined when the Democratic People's Republic of Korea conducted a nuclear test explosion in 2006, but more than a decade of political and institutional obstacles have prevented the CTBT from entering into full legal effect.

New opportunities exist today for CTBT entry into force. Understanding the story of the treaty will enable civil society, governments and diplomats to assist in this process and to develop more effective strategies and tools to bring about future disarmament agreements.

• Link to UN Publications to order copies of Unfinished Business: The Negotiation of the CTBT and the End of Nuclear Testing, by Dr Rebecca Johnson
• Link to the UNIDIR website to download a pdf of Unfinished Business

After years of opposition to the CTBT from the Bush administration, in a speech on 5 April 2009, President Obama pledged that his administration would "immediately and aggressively pursue U.S. ratification" of the Treaty.

In her confirmation hearing to be US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that she would "work with this committee and the Senate toward ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty". In an oped in the Boston Globe, Senator John Kerry, Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee also gave his support to US ratification, saying that he would "begin working to build the necessary bipartisan support for US ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty".

Latest Additions

• North Korea Nuclear test, 25 May 2009
• President Obama speech on Nuclear Disarmament, 5 April 2009
• Hillary Clinton Nomination Hearings To Be Secretary of State, 13 January 2009
• US Chair Senate Foreign Relations Committee John Kerry oped on New Directions for Foreign Relations, 13 January 2009
• Despatch 2 from the CTBT Integrated Field Exercise in Arcania, Rebecca Johnson, 10 September 2008
• Despatch from the CTBT On-site Inspection in Arcania, 6 September 2008
• CTBT Entry into Force Conference Agrees on practical Measures and Calls for Hold-outs to Sign and Ratify, Disarmament Diplomacy, Issue No. 85, Summer 2007.
• Joint Ministerial Statement on CTBT Presented in New York at the United Nations by Fifty-Nine Foreign Ministers, Co-Chairs Australia, Canada, Finland, Japan, the Netherlands, September 20, 2006.
• Statement by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, September 20, 2006.
• '[O]ur best hope of stemming nuclear proliferation', IAEA Director General Dr Mohamed ElBaradei on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, September 1, 2006

Key Documents

• For the CTBT text and latest on signatories and ratifications go to the CTBT Organisation website at: www.ctbto.org.

CTBT On-site Inspection Exercise, September 2008

Rebecca Johnson observes the CTBT On-site inspection exercise in Kazakhstan.

• Testing the test-ban treaty: Week two of the CTBTO inspection exercise in Kazakhstan, Rebecca Johnson, 19 September 2008
• Testing the test-ban treaty: An inspection exercise in Kazakhstan, Rebecca Johnson, 15 September 2008, published by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

See also: Acronym's CTBT archive, including Rebecca Johnson's reports on the treaty negotiations.

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