UN PROMOTES COMPREHENSIVE NUCLEAR-TEST-BAN TREATY

September 6, 2012

The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon addressed the General Assembly in New York via a video link today, as part of the continued observance of the International Day against Nuclear Tests. The official commemoration date is the 29 August as it marks the closure, in 1991, of the vast Semipalatinsk testing site in Kazakhstan. The Secretary-General highlighted the dangers and long-lasting effects of testing and praised Kazakhstan for its example and "continued leadership on nuclear disarmament".

Mr Ban also stressed the importance of endorsing and upholding the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT):

"I urge States that have not yet signed and ratified it to do so without delay. Pending the Treaty’s entry into force, I urge all States to uphold the existing moratorium on all nuclear test explosions."

A total of 157 of the 183 member states have signed and ratified the Treaty. Several states have signed, but not ratified the Treaty. These are:

Angola, Brunei, Chad, CHINA, Comoros, Congo, EGYPT, Equatorial Guinea, Gambia, Guinea Bissau, IRAN, Iraq, ISRAEL, Myanmar, Nepal, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Sao Tome and Principe, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Thailand, Timor-Leste, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Yemen and Zimbabwe.

Others have not even signed:

Bhutan, Cuba, Dominica, Grenadines, INDIA, Macedonia, Mauritius, NORTH KOREA, PAKISTAN, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, Tonga and Tuvalu.

All those countries in block capital are Annex 2 States, which means that their signatures and ratifications are required in order to trigger the Treaty's implementation. Hence Mr Ban's plea to uphold the present moratorium in the meantime.

What on earth are these Annex 2 nations waiting for? Do they think that this is some sort of poker game with the last resisting nation get to "Nuke" the rest of the world? If so they need to realise that it is more like Russian Roulette, but without the missing bullet: there would be no winner. And what about the small countries like Bhutan and Tuvalu? Are they holding out for world domination? Why can't these nations just get on with it and sign!

Of course the CTBT also needs the backup of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons which was launched in 1968 and covers non-proliferation and disarmament (as well as the right to peacefully use nuclear technology), but that is another story.