September 24th marks the fifteenth anniversary of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty’s celebratory signing ceremony at the United Nations. That’s fifteen years in which the treaty has remained in limbo, due to the worst entry-into-force provision ever negotiated. A much longer wait is in store, as long as entry into force depends on the United States, China, Egypt, Iran, Israel and Indonesia depositing their instruments of ratification, and India, Pakistan and North Korea deciding to sign and ratify the treaty.
The treaty’s tortured entry-into-force provision was the handiwork of China, Russia, and France, whose leaders felt obligated to sign, but remained reluctant to end nuclear testing permanently. They resolved this conundrum by giving other recalcitrant states vetoes over the treaty’s entry into force.
The fifteen year-long wait for the CTBT has been put to good use. A Preparatory Commission and a Provisional Technical Secretariat have worked diligently in Vienna setting up a global monitoring system and dispensing data that have undeniable value. This network, which is 80-85% complete, currently consists of ten laboratories and over 250 monitoring stations. I’m told by the CTBTO that seventeen of the remaining facilities have already been built and are in the process of calibration and certification. Twenty-seven more are under construction. Twenty-three stations and six laboratories remain to be built for a variety of political, administrative, technical or financial reasons.
The capabilities of the CTBTO’s global monitoring network were on display after North Korea tested a nuclear device in October, 2006. This test fizzled, producing a small fraction-of-a kiloton yield. Nonetheless, the test was immediately detected by seismic stations connected to the CTBTO’s grid in Bolivia, the United States, Canada, Australia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Finland, Ukraine, Germany and Norway. All told, thirteen primary and nine auxiliary seismic stations linked to the CTBTO immediately picked up this test.
The United States also possesses a world-class monitoring system, but even Washington can make good use of the CTBTO’s data. Parts of the world don’t take Washington’s word as gospel when it comes to nuclear weapon-related developments in other states. The CTBTO’s data can help remove potential error in judgment as well as veils of artifice and deceit, all helpful in deterring covert nuclear tests.
The Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization and its Provisional Technical Secretariat help produce global services in other areas, as well. In 2006, treaty members mandated the CTBTO to provide data directly to national tsunami warning centers. The prompt transmission of the CTBTO’s data can save lives and help mitigate disasters. The CTBTO also has the capacity to serve public safety by tracking radiation released after nuclear plant accidents and venting from underground tests by outlier states.
The treaty has generated valuable global services, but its monitoring system can atrophy as long as the treaty remains in limbo. While awaiting the entry into force of the CTBT, it makes good sense to ensure that these essential global services are permanent rather than provisional.
The most symbolic and effective way to do so is to remove the words “preparatory” and “provisional” from the letterheads of the Preparatory Commission and Provisional Technical Secretariat. This step could be accomplished by a UN Security Council resolution or a collective decision by treaty signatories.
In doing so, states would demonstrate renewed commitment to the CTBT while providing impetus to complete, maintain and upgrade the treaty’s monitoring network. Even countries that have yet to sign and ratify the CTBT could, at a minimum, demonstrate responsible nuclear stewardship by helping to provide facilities and data for the CTBTO. The Government of India, for example, has yet to contribute a single seismic, infrasound and radionuclide station to the treaty’s International Monitoring System. New Delhi does not even connect to the CTBTO’s tsunami warning system.
Other states that matter, including Pakistan, Brazil, Egypt, China, France, Israel, Iran, Great Britain, South Africa, Russia, and the United States, could do more to demonstrate their commitment to end (or, in the case of Pakistan and India, to suspend) nuclear tests. These states have yet to fulfill all of their pledges to the International Monitoring System’s network. Beijing, for example, does not share its monitoring data with the CTBTO, unlike Washington and Moscow.
It will take a very long time before all of the states named above consent to ratify this treaty. After fifteen years of waiting, the time has come to reaffirm the treaty’s objectives and purposes in more than a rhetorical way. Reaffirmation and recommitment can take many forms: by completing and upgrading monitoring stations, sharing data, making test sites more transparent, and by participating in joint monitoring experiments. Above all, the CTBT can be reaffirmed by making the treaty organization’s essential global services permanent rather than provisional.
Some treaty supporters will argue that these steps are insufficient and poor substitutes for the treaty’s entry into force. They are correct. But they are also unable to persuade enough Republican Senators in the United States to vote for the Treaty, or to convince states like Egypt, Iran, India, Pakistan and North Korea to come on board.
It took France and China 22 years to join the Nonproliferation Treaty. It is likely to take even longer for all of the holdouts to relinquish their vetoes over the CTBT’s formal entry into force. In the mean time, states that matter can reaffirm their commitment to end nuclear testing by making the treaty organization’s essential global services permanent rather than provisional.
Note to readers: On September 22nd, the Stimson Center and the Arms Control Association will co-host a meeting at Stimson to discuss this proposal. Joining Daryl Kimball of ACA and me will be David Koplow, who has recently returned to Georgetown Law from another stint in the Pentagon’s General Counsel’s office. I’ve asked David to address how, as a matter of international law, this proposal might be pursued.