WASHINGTON -- Participation this week by the United States in a conference intended to promote entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty is a positive development but does not guarantee the summit will result in substantial gains for the pact, observers and those involved with the effort said (see GSN, Sept. 21).
(Sep. 22) -
Tibor Toth, head of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization, shown in May. Toth yesterday said that continued action would be needed following a conference this week to bring the pact into force (Samuel Kubani/Getty Images).
"I don't think anything dramatic is going to emerge; people have not been talking about the CTBT in almost a decade," Arms Control Association head Daryl Kimball said last week. "Victory is a solid statement of support from the United States, not just for ratification, but for achieving entry into force of the treaty."
The biannual event, scheduled for Thursday and Friday at the United Nations in New York, will feature foreign ministers and high-level diplomats from the roughly 150 countries that have ratified the treaty. Yesterday in Washington, CTBT point man Tibor Toth predicted the large number of participants will make for an "action-packed" day for the accord.
Last week, the White House announced that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would lead the U.S. delegation to the conference (see GSN, Sept. 16). Washington last sent a team to the event in 1999, skipping the next four sessions during the Bush administration.
The United States is one of 44 "Annex 2" countries that must ratify the treaty before it can enter into force. It is also among nine holdouts; the others are China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, North Korea and Pakistan.
Speaking in Prague in April, President Barack Obama pledged to "immediately and aggressively" pursue ratification of the treaty by the Senate and to work with other countries to make the prohibition of nuclear test blasts the global rule of law (see GSN, April 6).
Thursday's session is expected to produce a "strong consensus declaration" by states that have ratified the pact and propose tangible actions those countries should take to promote the treaty, said Toth, head of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization. He did not offer specific examples of the proposals.
"This is a massive vote of confidence by [those] countries," Toth said during a briefing at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The document will be delivered to the "doorsteps" of the U.N. Security Council as it meets that day to discuss nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament, including the test ban treaty, he said.
"I don't think that one should overstate the significance of documents, at the same time one should not underestimate the importance of symbolism in diplomacy," Toth said.
Toth said the treaty has not received this much attention since the run-up to its signing in 1996. One reason for that change, he said, is that the world's security situation has changed since Sept. 11, 2001.
In the last nine years, a monitoring system to verify atomic blasts has "emerged from mushrooms," he said. To date, the organization has certified 248 international monitoring stations, nearly 75 percent of the total number of planned facilities.
The verification regime utilizes four monitoring technologies to scan the earth for evidence of a nuclear explosion -- seismological, infrasound and hydroacoustic stations monitor underground, the oceans and the atmosphere respectively; radionuclide sensors detect radioactive debris from atmospheric explosions or vented by underground or underwater nuclear explosions, according to the preparatory commission. The United States has agreed to host 42 stations, 39 of which have been built.
The system has cost roughly $1 billion to date, of which $200 million came from the United States, the CTBTO chief said.
The United States has observed a voluntary moratorium on nuclear bomb tests since 1992.
"The irony is that the United States doesn't need to test and we have a test moratorium; we basically have all the responsibilities of a state that's ratified but none of the benefits" such as a re-establishing a worldwide leadership role on nonproliferation issues, Kimball said yesterday during the briefing.
Opponents of the test ban treaty have argued against bringing the document into force because it will not deter nuclear proliferation and that its verification regime is weak.
In June, Senator John Kyl (R-Ariz.) and former U.S. Assistant Defense Secretary Richard Perle wrote a commentary criticizing the president's support of the treaty.
"The administration believes, without evidence, that ratification of the test ban treaty will discourage other countries from developing nuclear weapons," Kyl and Perle stated. "Which countries does it have in mind? Iran? North Korea? Syria? Countries alarmed by the nuclear ambitions of their enemies? Allies who may one day lose confidence in our nuclear umbrella?"
Senate passage of the pact failed in 1999 because of concerns it "simply is not verifiable," they said.
The verification system then was more of a "blueprint," according to Toth. "Now we have a system which was unfortunately tried twice by [North Korea] back in 2006 and 2009. The system is a reality."
The preparatory commission detected the North's May 25 explosion and determined it was minimally more powerful than the Stalinist state's 2006 blast.
U.S. Goals at the Conference
The White House must be cautious in its approach to the upcoming conference, warned Kaegan McGrath, a senior researcher for the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.
"On the one hand, the U.S. delegation could capitalize on the political momentum spun from the president's speech and display clear leadership on disarmament measures," he told Global Security Newswire last week in a telephone interview. "But you also have to take into account political reality: U.S. ratification is not a done deal. It's a tough road to hoe in securing 67 votes in the U.S. Senate."
If the administration is seen as flaunting its position before debate begins in Congress, it could "harden positions" about the pact, according to McGrath, who will represent the center at the summit.
"The United States cannot promise its own ratification; all it can do is revive the CTBT in the U.S. and then only through a concerted effort on the Obama administration's part," he said.
Still, McGrath said, lack of participation by the United States in previous conferences created a leadership gap that was "incredibly detrimental" to the treaty's chances of entering into force.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.) "is very pleased that the United States is again participating in the Article XIV conference," panel spokesman Frederick Jones said yesterday in a prepared statement. "He believes that the United States should be a leader in the effort to bring the CTBT into force, and having Secretary Clinton lead the delegation sends a strong message of this Administration's seriousness and determination in that effort."
"We know that U.S. ratification will encourage the other states with nuclear facilities to ratify the treaty, but it is also true that progress by those other states would aid the ratification effort in the U.S. Senate," Jones added.
Clinton's presence is "going to convey the seriousness of the Obama administration's commitment to reconsidering the CTBT here in the U.S. and spur thinking on the part of the either other states that must ratify before the treaty can enter into force," Kimball said yesterday at the Carnegie Endowment briefing.
In addition to Clinton's 10-minute statement to the conference, Undersecretary of State Ellen Tauscher is scheduled to hold bilateral meetings with other "Annex 2" countries, McGrath told GSN. He speculated that she would partner with officials from China to make a coordinated effort to address any outstanding concerns those countries might have.
Today Kimball told GSN the "general rule of thumb" is that "Annex 2" states that have signed the treaty send a representative or observer, even if they have yet to ratify the pact. Countries that have not signed -- and thus not ratified -- generally do not send representatives, he said.
Toth said the CTBT conference would be "complementary" to the Security Council session chaired by Obama, which would consider test ban in a wider context of nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation.
Having both meetings on the same day in the same city is a "rare opportunity" to have the various heads of state convene on nonproliferation and for the administration to "explain the rationale and logic for the vision [Obama] outlined in Prague for a world without nuclear weapons," Kimball said last week in a telephone interview.
Future of the Test Ban Treaty
After this week's conference the test ban treaty will need "three things: action, action, action," according to Toth.
He highlighted several recent developments; including Indonesia's pledge to ratify the pact once the United States does (see GSN, June 9). He said the organization is in talks with Jakarta about possibly ratifying the pact earlier.
He also noted the debate in India over whether to ratify the treaty and said similar "soul-searching" is going on in a number of capitals.
Yesterday Kimball said "U.S. ratification is essential but not sufficient" to bringing the holdout countries on board and that the decision must be based on their own national security assessments.
Observers will scrutinize the statements made by diplomats from the other eight holdout countries after the conference, according to Kimball, who coordinated a nongovernment organization statement endorsed by more than three dozens organizations and former diplomatic officials that will be read at the end of the conference.
"That will be an important bellwether to see where things are going to go outside of the United States over the next several months," he said.
Participation by the United States in the entry into force conference "will begin to turn up the heat on the other eight countries" which had previously enjoyed "substantial" cover, McGrath said. "This will begin to remove the cover and force them and their activities into the light."
Toth said signing the pact would be beneficial for Iran and North Korea, the two countries many in the international community have speculated will be the last to sign the test ban treaty.
If Iran "would like to demonstrate that there is a line which is not to be crossed, one of the quickest ways [to do that] is to ratify this treaty," the executive secretary said. Iran has maintained its nascent nuclear program is intended solely for civilian purposes.
Meanwhile, leaders in Pyongyang must understand that the pact is not aimed at them specifically and represents a chance to join the international community, according to Toth.
Last week Kimball said the entry into force conference would go a long way in putting the nonproliferation regime "back on track" and help re-establish trust and a commitment to nonproliferation among allies, without naming specific countries.
However, "these things don't happen overnight," he told GSN.