Fifth Ministerial Meeting to Promote CTBT entry into force Held on Eve of Treaty's 14th Anniversary

The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) marked its 14th anniversary on 24 September 2010. Since opening for signature in 1996, the CTBT now enjoys near-universal support: 182 States have signed it and 153 have also ratified.

On the eve of its anniversary, foreign ministers of Member States convened a meeting to promote the Treaty’s entry into force at the United Nations in New York.  The fifth of its kind, the biennial meeting was convened by Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Japan, Morocco, and the Netherlands. Over 70 countries participated, of which 24 were represented at the ministerial level.

“We commit ourselves individually and together to make the Treaty a focus of attention at the highest political level and to take measures to facilitate the signature and ratification process as recommended in the 2010 NPT Review Conference Final Document,” declared the foreign ministers attending the meeting in a joint Ministerial Statement.

To date, 62 countries have endorsed the Ministerial Statement and the number is expected to increase by the end of the year when the Statement is submitted to the United Nations General Assembly.

“We believe that the national security interests of not only the U.S., its allies and friends, but of the world at large would be enhanced by this Treaty coming into force,” Rudd said.

Remaining nine ratifications urged

The CTBT is only nine ratifications shy of entering into force. Endorsements by China, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Pakistan and the United States will bring it into force. These countries belong to a group of 44 nuclear technology holder States listed under Annex 2 of the Treaty whose ratification is mandatory for it to enter into force. Indonesia announced in May that it had initiated the ratification process of the Treaty.

“Our primary challenge remains unchanged: to ensure that the remaining nine Annex 2 States who have not yet ratified do so without further delay. The United States has an important leadership role to play in this regard,” Ireland’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Micheál Martin said at the Meeting.

The United States, which was represented for the first time in the Ministerial meeting, reaffirmed its commitment to secure U.S. ratification of the CTBT.

“The successful entry into force of the CTBT remains an essential milestone along the road to achieving President Obama’s vision of a world free of nuclear weapons,” said the United States.

The United States went on to say that while the Obama administration is confident that the Senate will vote to ratify the Treaty once the full facts have been presented, it is important to “undertake the research and analysis needed to evaluate the complex issues raised by the Treaty” so that senators’ concerns may be properly addressed enabling them to “make a fully informed decision when the Treaty is taken to a vote.”

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged each State whose ratification is needed for entry into force to act without waiting for the others. “We can no longer wait for the perfect international environment before taking advantage of existing – and potentially short-lived – opportunities,” he said.

Many countries at the Ministerial Meeting expressed support for sustaining the current voluntary moratorium against testing.  However, they also stressed that this is not a substitute for a legally-binding Treaty.

“Testing moratoria can never be a substitute for a comprehensive, universal and legally binding agreement. We must ensure that the Treaty enters into force, or the norm may lose its force,” Jonas Gahr Støre, Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs, advised the meeting.

Treaty’s verification regime praised

Ministers at the meeting also deplored the DPRK nuclear tests carried out in 2006 and 2009 as a serious violation of the strong norm against nuclear testing while at the same time praising the credibility and reliability of the CTBT’s verification regime as demonstrated by the accurate and timely detection of the DPRK tests.

The nuclear tests by the DPRK in 2006 and 2009 highlight the urgent need for the entry into force of the Treaty as soon as possible, the Joint Ministerial Statement said.

“The prompt detection of both tests by the CTBT’s International Monitoring System gave strong testimony of the verification regime’s ability to detect even small underground nuclear explosions,” stated the European Union.

“We remain confident of the verification regime’s future ability to provide the international community with an independent, reliable and cost-effective means of verifying, and deterring, any violation of the Treaty’s provisions,” the EU further stated.