Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty

The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) is a multilateral treaty by which states agree to ban all nuclear explosions in all environments, for military or civilian purposes. It was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 September 1996 but has not entered into force as eight specific states have not ratified the treaty yet.

History

To date, over 2,000 nuclear tests have been carried out at different locations all over the world. Arms control advocates had campaigned for the adoption of a treaty banning all nuclear explosions since the early 1950s, when public concern was aroused as a result of radioactive fall-out from atmospheric nuclear tests and the escalating arms race. Over 50 nuclear explosions were registered between 16 July 1945, when the first nuclear explosive test was conducted by the United States at White Sands Missile Range near Alamogordo, New Mexico, and 31 December 1953. Prime Minister Nehru of India voiced the heightened international concern in 1954, when he proposed the elimination of all nuclear test explosions worldwide. However, within the context of the Cold War, skepticism about the capability to verify compliance with a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty posed a major obstacle to any agreement.

Test Ban Treaty

Two test ban treaties aimed at prohibiting most nuclear weapons testing have been adopted:

Nuclear weapons testing

Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine the effectiveness, yield, and explosive capability of nuclear weapons. Throughout the 20th century, most nations that developed nuclear weapons tested them. Testing nuclear weapons can yield information about how the weapons work, as well as how the weapons behave under various conditions and how personnel, structures, and equipment behave when subjected to nuclear explosions. Nuclear testing has often been used as an indicator of scientific and military strength, and many tests have been overtly political in their intention; most nuclear weapons states publicly declared their nuclear status by means of a nuclear test.

The first nuclear device was detonated as a test by the United States at the Trinity site on July 16, 1945, with a yield approximately equivalent to 20 kilotons of TNT. The first thermonuclear weapon technology test of engineer device, codenamed "Mike", was tested at the Enewetak atoll in the Marshall Islands on November 1, 1952 (local date), also by the United States. The largest nuclear weapon ever tested was the "Tsar Bomba" of the Soviet Union at Novaya Zemlya on October 30, 1961, with the largest yield ever seen (as of January 2016), an estimated 50–58 megatons.

Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

The Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT) is a treaty prohibiting all test detonations of nuclear weapons except underground. It was developed both to slow the arms race (nuclear testing was, at the time, necessary for continued developments in nuclear weapons), and to stop the excessive release of nuclear fallout into the planet's atmosphere. The Treaty was signed and ratified by the governments of the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States during the autumn of 1963.

It is officially known as the treaty banning nuclear weapon tests in the atmosphere, in outer space and under water, but is often abbreviated as the Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT), Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT), or Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (NTBT) – although the latter also refers to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The Treaty was signed by the governments of the U.S.S.R. (represented by Andrei Gromyko), the United Kingdom (represented by Alec Douglas-Home), and the United States (represented by Dean Rusk), named the "Original Parties", in Moscow on August 5, 1963, before being opened for signature by other countries. The Treaty of Moscow was ratified by the U.S. Senate on September 24, 1963, by a vote of 80 to 19. The treaty went into effect on October 10, 1963.

Treaty

A treaty is an agreement under international law entered into by actors in international law, namely sovereign states and international organizations. A treaty may also be known as an (international) agreement, protocol, covenant, convention, pact, or exchange of letters, among other terms. Regardless of terminology, all of these forms of agreements are, under international law, equally considered treaties and the rules are the same.

Treaties can be loosely compared to contracts: both are means of willing parties assuming obligations among themselves, and a party to either that fails to live up to their obligations can be held liable under international law.

Modern usage

A treaty is an official, express written agreement that states use to legally bind themselves. A treaty is the official document which expresses that agreement in words; and it is also the objective outcome of a ceremonial occasion which acknowledges the parties and their defined relationships.

Modern form

Since the late 19th century, most treaties have followed a fairly consistent format. A treaty typically begins with a preamble describing the contracting parties and their joint objectives in executing the treaty, as well as summarizing any underlying events (such as a war). Modern preambles are sometimes structured as a single very long sentence formatted into multiple paragraphs for readability, in which each of the paragraphs begins with a verb (desiring, recognizing, having, and so on).