PRESS RELEASE

28 June 1996

Test Ban – So near and yet...

"World opinion will be critical to enforcing this Treaty" said Robert Bell, National Security Council Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Defense Policy and Arms Control. Bell argued that the momentum of opinion against testing had had a profound effect on the policies of the nuclear-weapon states, citing the changed positions of the US, France and China in recent years.

Ambassador Jaap Ramaker, Chair of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) negotiations, today put down what he hopes will be the final text of the Treaty. This Treaty text will comprehensively ban nuclear weapon test explosions. On the key issue of entry into force (or how and when the Treaty will take effect) the new text requires that 44 named states including the five nuclear-weapon states and the three "threshold" states, India, Pakistan and Israel, sign and ratify before the Treaty takes effect.

If all 44 have not ratified in three years, "the Depositary shall convene a Conference of the States that have already deposited their instruments of ratification on the request of a majority of those States. That Conference shall examine the extent to which the requirement set out in paragraph 1 has been met and shall consider and decide by consensus what measures consistent with international law may be undertaken to accelerate the ratification process in order to facilitate the early entry into force of this Treaty."

Ambassador Ramaer himself has indicted that in his view this conference does not have the power to bring the Treaty into force.

Dan Plesch, Director of BASIC today stated:

"Robert Bell highlights the vulnerability of this excellent Treaty if any one of 44 countries cannot be persuaded to sign on".

Negotiators had set a deadline of today to reach final agreement on the Treaty. Instead, today's text will be sent back to capitals for consideration. Intense behind-the-scenes discussions will take place during July. Negotiators will then reconvene at the CD on 29 July, and either approve the Treaty and submit it to the United Nations (UN) General Assembly (GA), or, if necessary, resume negotiations. It still may be possible to have the Treaty ready for signature at the opening of the UN GA if agreement can be reached fairly early in August. Any new negotiations must ensure that the Treaty can enter into force promptly.

Negotiations this week in Geneva have demonstrated that the remaining problems must be resolved by decisions taken in capitals. All the essential elements of the Test Ban itself have been agreed.

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