New Delhi: Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law Thursday revoking Moscow’s ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban-Treaty (CTBT) — adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1996 to prohibit all testing of nuclear weapons.
As Russian diplomats explained across various fora since the beginning of October, the Kremlin’s position on the revocation of ratification of the CTBT puts Russia in the same category as the USA, a signatory that is yet to ratify the agreement.
“The President signed Federal Law On Amendments to the Federal Law On Ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban-Treaty,” the Kremlin said in a statement dated 2 November 2023.
The widely-expected move was preceded by frenetic efforts by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organisation (CTBTO) – an interim organisation established by the treaty in 1996 – to prevent Russia’s move as early as 11 October.
“We maintain very close contacts with Dr Robert Floyd (Executive Secretary of the CTBTO). Over the past week alone, several face-to-face meetings and several telephone conversations took place,” Mikhail Ulyanov, Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the International Organisations in Vienna, had told the state-run RIA Novosti news agency on 11 October.
“We explained that we are talking about a possible revoking of Russian ratification of the Treaty, which took place back in 2000. We emphasised that this is a kind of (mirror) response to the position of the United States,” added Ulyanov then.
The US said that it was “deeply concerned” by Russia’s actions and called it a step in the wrong direction.
“We are deeply concerned by Russia’s planned action to withdraw its ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). Unfortunately, it represents a significant step in the wrong direction, taking us further from, not closer to, entry into force,” said Secretary of State Anthony Blinken in a press statement Thursday.
Blinken added that this move “continues Moscow’s disturbing and misguided efforts to heighten nuclear risks” as it continues its “illegal” war in Ukraine.
The US signed the CTBT on 24 September 1996 but is yet to ratify the agreement. Russia has, however, maintained that it will not conduct nuclear tests as long as the US does not conduct any.
India has neither signed nor ratified the CTBT. It was a part of the negotiations in 1996, but later withdrew before it was concluded.
ThePrint explains the history of the CTBT and why Russia’s decision delays its entry into force.
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What is CTBT
The CTBT is a multilateral treaty adopted by the UN General Assembly on 10 September 1996 through UNGA resolution 50/245. Article I of the treaty prohibits states from carrying out any “nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion” and further bans such tests in any part under the jurisdiction of the state.
On 24 September 1996, the treaty was officially opened for signatures. While India is not a signatory to the treaty, it was the first to call for the banning of testing of nuclear weapons in 1954.
In light of the ongoing discussions about nuclear testing, it is crucial to consider the broader implications of such actions. The UN Secretary-General has emphasized that the world must unite to end the practice of nuclear testing, highlighting the need for a comprehensive approach to nuclear disarmament and the importance of treaties like the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
On 1 March 1954, the US carried out a 15 megaton nuclear test at the Bikini Atoll. The “Castle Bravo” test remains till date the most powerful explosive nuclear weapon detonated by the US and was a thousand times more powerful than bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the unexpected radiation fallout leading to numerous health issues amongst the population of Marshall Islands years later.
The nuclear fallout even reached the Japanese ship – Lucky Dragon 5 – located around 80 miles from the blast site, leading to one crew member of the 23 to die from acute radiation poisoning, as reported by Brookings Institution, a US based think-tank.
As a result of this, Jawaharlal Nehru, the then prime minister of India on 2 April 1954 in the Lok Sabha called for a “standstill agreement” on further tests in lieu of a more comprehensive agreement on the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons at a later date.
On 8 April 1954, India submitted a four-point proposal to the UN Secretary General calling for the UN Disarmament Commission to consider a “standstill agreement”. The proposal received global support including from the Pope at the time and Albert Einstein, according to a brief by the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), a New Delhi-based think tank.
In 1955, the USSR proposed a plan for the reduction of conventional forces and weapons with the elimination of nuclear weapons. The proposal never came to fruition.
In 1963, however, then US President John F. Kennedy announced that Washington will no longer conduct atmospheric nuclear tests, leading Nikita Khuruschev of the Soviet Union to propose a ban on testing of nuclear weapons in outer space, underwater and the atmosphere. Within a few months, a Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT) came into force, in October 1963, as explained by ORF.
Despite these efforts, nuclear testing continued with underground tests. In 1968, negotiations for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) began, which also called for cessation of the “nuclear arms race”.
Finally, after the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, efforts towards a comprehensive test ban treaty gained traction.
Article XIV of the CTBT
The CTBT, while adopted in 1996 by the UN General Assembly, has not yet come into force. This is because of Article XIV of the treaty, which specifically states that the treaty will enter into force only after 44 countries listed in Annex 2 of the agreement have ratified it.
Article XIV (1) states that, “This Treaty shall enter into force 180 days after the date of deposit of the instruments of ratification by all States listed in Annex 2 to this Treaty, but in no case earlier than two years after its opening for signature.”
Annex 2 of the treaty contains a list of 44 nations that appear in the International Atomic Energy Agency’s list of “Nuclear Power Reactors in the World”. This list includes India, Pakistan, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Algeria, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, apart from the P5 countries — the US, the UK, Russia, France and China.
According to the latest data made available by the CTBTO, 41 of the 44 countries have signed the CTBT, while 36 have ratified the agreement including Russia. The five signatories that are yet to ratify the agreement are China, Egypt, Iran, Israel and the US. At the same time, the three countries that have not signed the treaty are India, Pakistan and the DPRK.
The treaty, in its present form, cannot come into force until all 44 countries ratify it. With Russia’s revocation of ratification, the number of countries required for the CTBT to come into force is now nine.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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