Arms Control and Disarmament projects

Supporting the CTBT’s provisional entry into force through communicating the readiness of the CTBTO and the verification regime

Funders

• Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• Ploughshares Foundation

Project updates

•  17/06/2010: all papers submitted and under review;
• 18/06/2010: OP 3 and 4 now sent for layout;
• 24/06/2010: OP 3 released;
• 14/07/2010: OP 4 scheduled for release on 16/07/2010;
• 16/07/2010: OP 4 released;
• 26/08/2010: OP 5 cancelled;
• 28/04/2011: Presentation to the 2011 Carnegie Nuclear Policy Conference;
• 30/04/2011: BASIC-VERTIC meeting in the US Senate;
• 01/08/2011: OP 5 re-commissioned;
• 28/10/2011: OP 5 released as VERTIC Brief 16;
• 20/11/2011:  Preparations begun for 2012 VERTIC seminar on CTBT verification;
• 02/03/2012: Final seminar to be held at East-West Institute in New York.

Background

In recent years the US president, Barack Obama, has pledged to push for his country to ratify the CTBT, but there are still major uncertainties relating to the timing and outcome of a Senate vote. The treaty’s verifiability will resurface as a major point in the discussion. This project aims to clearly transmit information on the effectiveness of the verification regime of the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty to key decision makers in the United States, and other States.

We intend to use our standing in the CTBT community to bring European and to some extent CTBTO experts to the United States for a series of seminars and informal briefings.

To support our work, we also intend to commission and publish a series of short and accessible briefing papers on the CTBT verification regime. These will be written by notable personalities, preferably with neutral or bipartisan credentials. The papers are short (no more than two pages), persuasive, and precise.

Key activities

• Consultation in the United States, late 2009 (completed)
• Paper series, early to mid 2010 (completed)
• Consultation in the United States, mid-2010 (completed)
• Seminars (Washington DC and New York), mid-2010 (completed)
• Final project seminar, New York, February 2012 (planned)

Resources

• Occasional Paper 1: Ed Ifft, 'On-site Inspections under the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT): Modalities' (December 2009)
• Occasional Paper 2, Ed Ifft, 'On-site Inspections under the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT): Technical Considerations' (December 2009)
• VERTIC Brief 10, Malcolm Coxhead and David Jepsen, 'Putting the CTBT into practice' (December 2009)
• Occasional Paper 3, Victor Slipchenko, 'Russia, Ratification and the CTBT's entry into force' (June 2010)
• Occasional Paper 4, Jeffrey Lewis, 'The CTBT: Prospects for entry into force' (July 2010)
• Andreas Persbo, Bringing the Test Ban Treaty into Law, 2011 Nuclear Policy Conference, Washington, DC, 28 April 2011
• BASIC summary of the 30 March 2011 meeting in the US Senate, 31 March 2011