This is a reprint of an article published on 23 June 2020 by The National…
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)
The role of the nuclear test ban as a non-proliferation and arms control instrument
The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) was agreed in 1996 after more than 2000 nuclear tests had left a lasting, poisonous legacy. The treaty’s negotiations had already contributed to the indefinite extension of the NPT the year before (having contributed to the failures of the 1980 and 1990 NPT Review Conferences). Confidence in arms control and disarmament was high, and nuclear arsenals were falling dramatically. Strategic relations were good. But things look very different today, with high levels of distrust and low confidence in achieving further disarmament progress.
Nuclear Weapons: FAQ
This factsheet outlines the answers some very frequently asked and core questions about nuclear weapons.…
The International Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Regime
This factsheet outlines the key treaties, resolutions, and bodies that make up the non-proliferation and disarmament regime.…
Multilateral Frustrations Generate Challenges for Disarmament Diplomacy
This week the Conference on Disarmament begins its second session of the year in Geneva, on the back of the two weeks of multilateralism in New York City at the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty’s third Preparatory Committee Meeting (PrepCom).
What comes next for U.S. nuclear weapons policy?
This Wednesday, President Obama is slated to give his next big foreign policy speech at the historically significant Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. It was at this Gate – an enduring symbol of both the division and subsequent unity of East and West Berlin – that Ronald Reagan urged then-General Secretary of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, to “tear down this wall” in 1987, and President Clinton spoke of a free and unified Berlin in 1994, following the end of the Cold War.
Getting to Zero: Further Reading
Earlier Detailed Proposals for Nuclear Disarmament
- Report of the Commission on Weapons of Mass Destruction, Weapons of Terror: Freeing the World of Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Arms, (“Blix Report”), June 2006
- Japan Institute of International Affairs, the Hiroshima Peace Institute and the Japanese Government, Report of the Tokyo Forum on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, 1999
- Committee on International Security and Arms Control, National Academy of Sciences,
Getting to Zero Timeline: 2007
December 20, 2007: U.S. Special Representative for Nuclear Nonproliferation, Christopher Ford, spoke at the UK Foreign Office Wilton Park conference about the goal of zero nuclear weapons: