Non-proliferation treaty (NPT)

20 years CTBT Ministerial Meeting

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.

A belt of nuclear weapons free zones from Mongolia to Africa!

The 2015 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) of April and May failed to produce a final document. The reason was that the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada did not accept a deadline for a conference on a “Nuclear Weapons Free Zone” (NWFZ) in the Middle East that should also include other weapons of mass destruction.