Nuclear weapons experts from across international civil society are calling on the international community to pressure the states that have yet to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) to do so urgently and to urge Russia to re-ratify it.

Russia’s decision to revoke its ratification of the treaty by pointing to the United States failure to ratify it is a wake up call to states that still need to ratify the CTBT to do so, in order for the treaty to enter into force.

In the light of this, the signatories are calling for all countries that have signed and ratified the CTBT and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) to urge the eight states that have yet to ratify the CTBT (China, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, Pakistan and the United States) to do so. In addition, the experts call for international pressure on Russia to reverse its de-ratification of the treaty.

They also urge all CTBT states with testing facilities to negotiate voluntary confidence building measures to ensure that ongoing experiments at former nuclear test sites are consistent with the the treaty.

Since the CTBT was adopted in 1996, none of the main nuclear-armed states have carried out a test, but the experts say Russia’s recent action, despite Moscow’s assurances it will continue to abide by the treaty as long as the United States does not carry out a test, is a retrograde step that increases the likelihood that nuclear-armed states will resume testing.  

In a letter sent to every CTBT and TPNW state party and signatory, the experts say that although it has yet to enter into force, the CTBT is “one of the most successful and valuable agreements in the long history of nuclear nonproliferation, arms control, and disarmament …. since the conclusion of the treaty in 1996, it has been signed by 187 countries, and nuclear testing has become taboo.”

The signatories come from leading civil society organisations, including the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, the Arms Control Association, Soka Gakkai International, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Reaching Critical Will, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, and the Project on Managing the Atom at the Belfer Center.

A full copy of the letter is available on request.

Ends

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Editor’s notes

A full list of the signatories:

Melissa Parke, Executive Director, International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

Daryl G. Kimball, Executive Director, Arms Control Association

Francesca Giovannini, Executive Director, Project on Managing the Atom, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs

Scott Yundt, Executive Director, Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment)

Marc Finaud, Senior Advisor and Associate Fellow, Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP)*

Jay Coghlan, Executive Director, Nuclear Watch New Mexico

Robert J. Goldston, Professor, Princeton University*

Jean-Marie Collin, Director, ICAN France

Frank N. von Hippel, Senior Research Physicist and Professor of Public and International Affairs Emeritus, Program on Science and Global Security, Princeton University

Susan F. Burk, Former Special Representative of the President for Nuclear Nonproliferation

David A. Koplow, Professor, Georgetown University Law Center*

John Hallam, People for Nuclear Disarmament and the Human Survival Project, Co-Convener, Abolition 2000 Working Group on Nuclear Risk Reduction

Francesco Calogero, Emeritus Professor of Theoretical Physics, University of Rome "La Sapienza"

Simon Cleobury, Head, Arms Control and Disarmament, Geneva Centre for Security Policy

Ambassador Thomas Hajnoczi (Retired), Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Sebastian Brixey-Williams, Executive Director, BASIC

Oliver Meier, Policy and Research Director, European Leadership Network*

Tetiana Melnyk, Non-Resident Fellow, Odessa Center for Nonproliferation (OdCNP)

Marco Siddi, Senior Researcher, Finnish Institute of International Affairs

Paul F. Walker, Coordinator, Chemical Weapons Convention Coalition

Ray Acheson, Director, Reaching Critical Will, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom

Alice Saltini, Research Coordinator, European Leadership Network

Denise Duffield, Associate Director, Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles

Thomas Countryman, Chairman, Arms Control Association

Ambassador Thomas Greminger, Executive Director, Geneva Centre for Security Policy

Jacqueline Cabasso, Executive Director, Western States Legal Foundation

Tara Drozdenko, Director, Global Security Program, Union of Concerned Scientists

Tomohiko Aishima, Executive Director of Peace and Global Issues, Soka Gakkai International

Ambassador Jaap Ramaker (Retired), Chairman of the 1996 CTBT Negotiations in Geneva

Nikita Gryazin, YGLN Coordinator, European Leadership Network

Ambassador James E. Goodby, Annenberg Distinguished Visiting Fellow, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University*

Greg Thielmann, Board Member, Arms Control Association

Mary Dickson, Utah Downwinders

Alessandro Rizzo, Researcher, ENEA (National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development - Italy)

Peter Wilk, MD, Administrative Chair, Back from the Brink Coalition

Shatabhisha Shetty, Director, Asia Pacific Leadership Network

Fabio Tarini, Former Director, CISP (Center on Interdisciplinary Studies for Peace), University of Pisa

Felice Cohen-Joppa, Coordinator, The Nuclear Resister

Jack Cohen-Joppa, Coordinator, The Nuclear Resister

Mark Muhich, Chairman, Sierra Club Stop Nuclear Weapons Team

Michael Christ, Executive Director, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW)

Marina Rui, Union of Scientists for Disarmament

Martin Fleck, Director, Nuclear Weapons Abolition Program, Physicians for Social Responsibility

Francesco Forti, University of Pisa and USPID

* signed in personal capacity for identification purposes only

About the CTBT

The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, adopted in 1996, is the first international treaty to ban all nuclear tests. It has 187 states which have signed, and 178 which have ratified, but has not entered into force yet because of the failure of eight states, upon whose ratification the entry into force of the treaty depends: China, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, Pakistan and the United States. Russian Duma revoked ratification of the treaty on 18 October 2023. The treaty created the Comprehensive Test Ban Traty Organization (CTBTO) to prepare for the Treaty’s entry into force. It promotes universal recognition of the Treaty; and is building the CTBT verification regime to ensure no nuclear explosion can go undetected.  

About the TPNW

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, adopted in 2017, entered into force in 2021. It bans countries from developing, testing, producing, manufacturing, transferring, possessing, stockpiling, using or threatening to use nuclear weapons, or allowing nuclear weapons to be stationed on their territory. It also prohibits them from assisting, encouraging or inducing anyone to engage in these activities.