NUCLEAR TESTS WILL SOON BE OUTLAWED

By Adolfo R. Taylhardat

Commonly, the general public associates the consequences of nuclear tests with the health and ecological effects. Everybody knows the pernicious effects that nuclear explosions have on human beings and on the natural environment as a whole, resulting mainly from the nuclear radiation and the radioactive fall-out. These concerns have been alleviated by limiting the tests to underground explosions. However, in the long term, the most dangerous effect of nuclear tests resides in its military dimension. Nuclear experiments are conducted to refine existing weapons designs, increase their efficiency, their size, increase their power, validate their reliability, and to conceive new generations of more sophisticated weapons.

In 1954, shortly after the United States and the then Soviet Union stepped-up from their "atomic powers" status to become "nuclear powers" the international community became truly concerned with the dangers, both military and ecological, posed by the testing of nuclear weapons. In October that year, Burma proposed the U.N. General Assembly to agree "on the cessation of all tests being carried out to produce better and more powerful thermonuclear and atomic weapons".

The first concrete result of those efforts was the Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in the Outer Space and Under the Water, (Partial Test Ban Treaty or PTBT). This Treaty, signed on August 5, 1963 has now more than 120 States Parties. This treaty as its name indicates did not ban underground nuclear tests. Nonetheless, in its Preamble it proclaimed the determination of the international community "to achieve the discontinuance of all test explosions of nuclear weapons for all time". This same commitment was reiterated in the Preamble of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) concluded in 1970.

The continued pressure of the international community led the United States and the Soviet Union to conclude, in 1974, the Treaty on the Limitation of Underground Nuclear Weapons Test, (Threshold Test Ban Treaty or TTBT), by which the two countries agreed to limit their underground tests to 150 kilotons (ten times the explosive yield of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima)

Two years later, on 1976, these countries signed the Treaty on Peaceful Nuclear Explosions (PNET); this treaty recognizes the fact that there is no essential distinction between the technology used to produce a weapon and that to be used for peaceful purposes. The Treaty also limited 150 kilotons any "peaceful nuclear explosion".

In line with the commitment proclaimed in the preambles of the PTBT and NPT, the non-nuclear countries have consistently demanded the nuclear powers to agree to negotiate a comprehensive test ban treaty (CTBT). In the past Venezuela maintained an active position in favor of the prohibition of nuclear tests and repeatedly voiced its opinion that the prohibition to be negotiated should ban all nuclear test, of any yield, in all the environments and forever. Faithful to that position Venezuela, together with Indonesia, Mexico, Peru, Sri Lanka and the then Yugoslavia, proposed the convening of a Conference of the parties to the Partial Test Ban Treaty in order to extend the prohibitions of that treaty to underground testing. The conference met in New York in 1990, but failed in its objective because the United States of America refused to agree to the extension.

Finally, the negotiations on the CTBT have entered in an encouraging path and the prospects for a successful result seem now quite promising. Since last year the Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva, the single multilateral forum devoted to negotiations on disarmament, engaged in substantive negotiations which should lead, by the time of the next General Assembly of the United Nations in September, to the signature of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

There are, however two crucial issues that may prevent reaching the dateline set out for the completion of the negotiations.

One of them is the demand by India that the CTBT expressly reflect the commitment of nuclear powers to move towards nuclear disarmament within the framework of a time-bound program. This demand, which reflects a declared objective of the non-aligned countries, is considered unrealistic by many non-nuclear countries and is rejected by the nuclear powers.

The other one is the insistence by China that peaceful nuclear explosions (PNE's) should be excluded from the prohibition contemplated in the CTBT. China argues that she cannot renounce her right to utilize explosions in major public works needed in its vast territory for the benefit of its population. The fact is that as a result of the lack of interest from the industrial sector, the public concern over environmental issues, the impossibility to distinguish between "peaceful" and military nuclear explosions and their cost, peaceful nuclear explosions have never been used in civil engineering works.

President Boris Yeltsin recently paid what seems to have been a successful visit to Beijing. This visit marked the beginning of the melting of a more than ten years "freeze" of the Sino-Soviet relations. One of the main objectives of President Yeltsin's visit was to fulfill a, mandate that he himself requested from the leaders of the G-7 during the Nuclear Security Summit Meeting recently held in Moscow. President Yeltsin volunteered himself to act as the messenger of the G-7 to convey to the Chinese authorities the hope that they will not continue to insist in their position regarding peaceful nuclear explosions. If Yeltsin succeeds -as apparently he has- in convincing the Chinese authorities to abandon their demand on the PNE's, one of the major stumbling blocks hindering progress towards the CTBT would have been eliminated.

That success should encourage Russia to also act upon its close friend, India, to similarly no to insist on a time-bound program for nuclear disarmament as a condition for its support to the CTBT. If this is also attained, the road would be cleared, and at the next session of the General Assembly the world will finally succeed in prohibiting all nuclear tests, in all environments and forever.