After the CTB... India`s intentions
More than six months after it was adopted in the U.N. General Assembly, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTB) remains a victim of narrowly perceived national security interests. Three sour ironies marked the way agreement was reached. First, India, which pioneered the proposal in 1954, became its bitterest opponent, alone vetoing it at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, thus denying the CTB universality. Second, for all the hard bargaining over 33 months, the CTB may well remain a paper treaty with an entry-into-force clause (Article XIV) that makes it uniquely vulnerable to the specific perceptions of any of the 44 states that must ratify it. Among them is India, which declared last September that it would not sign it then--or later. Third the CTB is no longer comprehensive in the way it would have been in the 1950s and 1960s. It permits non-explosive weapons-related tests. While the value of these tests in weapons development is debatable--indeed, virtually nonexistent according to many scientists--such tests will keep weapons labs running, bomb designers employed, and delusions about weapons efficacy alive. This will surely hamper ratification by many states.
- OSTI ID:
- 518411
- Journal Information:
- Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Journal Name: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 53; ISSN BASIAP; ISSN 0096-5243
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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