Researcher: Andreas Persbo
Past and current funders: Governments of Germany, Holland, Ireland, New Zealand and Norway.

In 1996, after protracted discussions and negotiations, agreement was finally reached on the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) banning nuclear test explosions in all environments. The treaty provides for an extensive verification regime, including an International Monitoring System (IMS), on-site inspections and confidence-building measures, which will be operated by the CTBT Organisation (CTBTO). While there are serious obstacles to be overcome before the treaty enters into force, considerable progress is being made in developing the verification system.

VERTIC’s project promotes the early implementation of the treaty and its verification system. Its activities include:

• monitoring, liasing with and contributing to the work of the Preparatory Commission (PrepCom) of the CTBT Organisation (CTBTO) and its Provisional Technical Secretariat (PTS) as it establishes the treaty’s verification system; and
• researching and publishing analyses of the progress made in and the challenges facing developing the CTBT’s verification system.
• organizing seminars on the verifiability of the treaty and its prospect for early entry into force

VERTIC seminar on 'Verifying the comprehensive nuclear test ban: 10 years of development'
More than fifty-five representatives from Permanent Missions to the UN, NGOs and the UN secretariat attended VERTIC's lunchtime seminar on: 'Verifying the comprehensive nuclear test ban: 10 years of development'. The seminar which was held on Monday, 9 October 2006, was organized by VERTIC at the invitation of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO). It followed the CTBTO Executive Secretary's delivery of his annual report to the UN General Assembly First Committee on that day. The programme and presentations are available here:

Introduction: ten years of development
Mr Andreas Persbo
Arms Control and Disarmament Researcher, VERTIC, London, United Kingdom

Keynote address
Ambassador Tibor Tóth
Executive Secretary, CTBTO Preparatory Commission, Vienna, Austria
[Delivered by Mr Peter Hulsroj]

Examining the effectiveness of the CTBT verification regime: the results of the First System Wide Performance Test
Dr Lassina Zerbo
Director, International Data Centre, CTBTO Preparatory Commission, Vienna, Austria
[Delivered by Mr Peter Hulsroj]

The Why, What and When of CTBT National Implementation
Mr Peter Hulsroj
Chief, Legal Services Section and Legal Adviser, CTBTO Preparatory Commission, Vienna, Austria

Civilian application of the CTBT International Monitoring System
Dr Laura Kong, Director, International Tsunami Information Center, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA

VERTIC would like to thank the Governments of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Kingdom of Norway, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and New Zealand for their generous support for this seminar.

It should be noted that due to the suspected nuclear test in North Korea earlier that day, two speakers could not attend the event. Ambassador Tibor Toth, Executive Secretary of the CTBTO, and Dr Lassina Zerbo, Director of the CTBTO International Data Centre Division, both had to travel back to CTBTO headquarters in Vienna, Austria. Their statements were read by Mr. Peter Hulsroj, the CTBTO's Legal Advisor.

VERTIC seminar: 'Facilitating the Early Entry into Force of the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty: Overcoming Political and Technological Challenges', 22 September 2005, New York
VERTIC held a lunchtime seminar at the United Nations Secretariat in New York. This was the third such seminar that VERTIC has organized in collaboration with the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO). The programme was

VERTIC is grateful to the Governments of Norway and the Netherlands for their generous support for the seminar.

For more information, contact Jane Awford, by phone at +44 (0) 20 7065 0

VERTIC seminar: 'Verifying the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty: Participation, Progress and Potential', 3 September 2003, Vienna
The Third Conference on Facilitating the Entry into Force of the CTBT was held in Vienna, Austria, from 3-5 September 2003.

VERTIC contributed to the conference by holding a lunchtime seminar on the first day, organised in co-operation with the Preparatory Commission for the CTBTO (PrepCom), to permit informal discussion of verification and related issues. This was the fourth such seminar VERTIC and the CTBTO have jointly organised. Some 50 delegates and representatives of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) attended it.

In his introductory statement (former) VERTIC Executive Director Trevor Findlay expressed the Centre's support for the early establishment of the complete verification system and noted the considerable progress made by the PrepCom and the PTS in setting up an International Monitoring System (IMS) and an International Data Centre (IDC), which collects, collates, distributes and processes the information. The first speaker at the seminar, Raymond J. Willemann, Director of the International Seismological Centre (ISC), discussed the role of non-IMS seismic stations in monitoring. He was followed by Robert Gough, Chief of the Methodology Section, On-site Inspections, in the PTS, who reported on the 2002 on-site inspection field experiment conducted in Kazakhstan. Finally, Rebecca Johnson, Executive Director of the Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy. A lively question and answer period followed.

VERTIC also helped draft the NGO Statement on the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) for the Third Article XIV Conference on Accelerating Entry-Into-Force. The statement was signed by nearly 100 other organisations and delivered by Dr Klaus Renholder of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Vienna on 5 September 2003. It called on all states to join the treaty and reaffirmed that a strengthened network of NGOs, governments, international organisations and media organisations would continue to promote early entry into force and exert pressure on the 12 Annex 2 states which have yet to sign or ratify the treaty

Verification Yearbook 2004
Effective CTBT verification: the evidence accumulates
by David Hafemeister

Verification Yearbook 2003
Preface
by Wolfgang Hoffmann
CTBT radionuclide verification and the British Laboratory
by Christine Comley and Owen Price

Verification Yearbook 2002
CTBT verification: technical progress versus political stasis
by Nikolai Sokov

The above publications are available in portable document format (PDF) and require the installation of Adobe Reader. To download a free copy of the software visit visit the Adobe website.