Message to the Senate transmitting the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty and documentation

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Sept 29, 1997

To the Senate of the United States:

I transmit herewith, for the advice and consent of the Senate to ratification, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty (the "Treaty" or "CTBT"), opened for signature and signed by the United States at New York on September 24, 1996. The Treaty includes two Annexes, a Protocol, and two Annexes to the Protocol, all of which form integral parts of the Treaty. I transmit also, for the information of the Senate, the report of the Department of State on the Treaty, including an Article-by-Article analysis of the Treaty.

Also included in the Department of State's report is a document relevant to but not part of the Treaty: the Text on the Establishment of a Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Organization, adopted by the Signatory States to the Treaty on November 19, 1996. The Text provides the basis for the work of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Organization in preparing detailed procedures for implementing the Treaty and making arrangements for the first session of the Conference of the States Parties to the Treaty. In particular, by the terms of the Treaty, the Preparatory Commission will be responsible for ensuring that the verification regime established by the Treaty will be effectively in operation at such time as the Treaty enters into force. My Administration has completed and will submit separately to the Senate an analysis of the verifiability of the Treaty, consistent with section 37 of the Arms Control and Disarmament Act, as amended. Such legislation as may be necessary to implement the Treaty also will be submitted separately to the Senate for appropriate action.

The conclusion of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty is a signal event in the history of arms control. The subject of the Treaty is one that has been under consideration by the international community for nearly 40 years, and the significance of the conclusion of negotiations and the signature to date of more than 140 states cannot be overestimated. The Treaty creates an absolute prohibition against the conduct of nuclear weapon test explosions or any other nuclear explosion anywhere. Specifically, each State Party undertakes not to carry out any nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion; to prohibit and prevent any nuclear explosions at any place under its jurisdiction or control; and to refrain from causing, encouraging, or in any way participating in the carrying out of any nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion.

The Treaty establishes a far reaching verification regime, based on the provision of seismic, hydroacoustic, radionuclide, and infrasound data by a global network (the "International Monitoring System") consisting of the facilities listed in Annex I to the Protocol. Data provided by the International Monitoring System will be stored, analyzed, and disseminated, in accordance with Treaty-mandated operational manuals, by an International Data Center that will be part of the Technical Secretariat of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Organization. The verification regime includes rules for the conduct of on-site inspections, provisions for consultation and clarification, and voluntary confidence-building measures designed to contribute to the timely resolution of any compliance concerns arising from possible misinterpretation of monitoring data related to chemical explosions that a State Party intends to or has carried out. Equally important to the U.S. ability to verify the Treaty, the text specifically provides for the right of States Parties to use information obtained by national technical means in a manner consistent with generally recognized principles of international law for purposes of verification generally, and in particular, as the basis for an on-site inspection request. The verification regime provides each State Party the right to protect sensitive installations, activities, or locations not related to the Treaty. Determinations of compliance with the Treaty rest with each individual State Party to the Treaty.

Negotiations for a nuclear test-ban treaty date back to the Eisenhower Administration. During the period 1978-1980, negotiations among the United States, the United Kingdom, and the USSR (the Depositary Governments of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)) made progress, but ended without agreement. Thereafter, as the nonnuclear weapon states called for test-ban negotiations, the United States urged the Conference on Disarmament (the "CD") to devote its attention to the difficult aspects of monitoring compliance with such a ban and developing elements of an international monitoring regime. After the United States, joined by other key states, declared its support for comprehensive test-ban negotiations with a view toward prompt conclusion of a treaty, negotiations on a comprehensive test-ban were initiated in the CD, in January 1994. Increased impetus for the conclusion of a comprehensive nuclear test-ban treaty by the end of 1996 resulted from the adoption, by the Parties to the NPT in conjunction with the indefinite and unconditional extension of that Treaty, of "Principles and Objectives for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament" that listed the conclusion of a CTBT as the highest measure of its program of action.