CTBT
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Apr 16, 2009
In this new article published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists Online, Executive Director John Isaacs argues that the successful effort in the 1990s to approve the Chemical Weapons Convention provides a useful historical precedent to keep in mind as efforts move forward today to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. In both past and present efforts, Joe Biden is a central figure.
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All CTBT Articles
Jun 15, 2012
The “knock down, drag out fight” over New START “quite rightly” led the administration to forgo any thought of trying to bring the test ban to the Senate during Obama’s first term, said Kingston Reif, nuclear nonproliferation director at the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation.
Apr 16, 2012
Center for Arms Control and Non Proliferation's Senior Science Fellow Dr. Phil Coyle has a new article in the World Politics Review on U.S. nuclear test detection capabilities and why its important to sustain and improve them with our without the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).
Apr 9, 2012
In this day and age, concerns about the maintenance of the stockpile and verification of the CTBT are no longer compelling arguments. In short, the United States should ratify the CTBT as soon as possible, writes Kingston Reif in his monthly Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists column. It has nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Jun 27, 2011
Uncowed by its failure to convince the U.S. Senate and the American public to oppose the New START treaty, the Heritage Foundation is trying to gin up opposition to another international treaty that would greatly benefit U.S. national security: the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).
Oct 5, 2010
The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test- Ban Treaty (CTBT) opened for signature 14 years ago today on 24 September 1996. Signed by 185 of the UN’s 192 Member States, the Treaty is designed to constrain the research and development of nuclear weapons by banning all nuclear test explosions in all environments, indefinitely. Given the undeniable security and non-proliferation benefits of the CTBT, it should come as no surprise that state parties to the NPT reaffirmed the vital importance of the treaty’s entry into force at the recent May 2010 NPT Review Conference in New York. But after fourteen years, how much longer will the world have to wait?
Nov 2, 2009
Ten years ago last month, the U.S. Senate failed to approve the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. A decade later, the dangers posed by the potential spread of nuclear weapons and materials to additional states and terrorists have increased dramatically. Stopping proliferation will require a global effort -- and an early, essential step in that effort must be U.S. ratification of the test ban, Kingston Reif argues in this new op-ed for World Politics Review.
Apr 16, 2009
In this new article published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists Online, Executive Director John Isaacs argues that the successful effort in the 1990s to approve the Chemical Weapons Convention provides a useful historical precedent to keep in mind as efforts move forward today to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. In both past and present efforts, Joe Biden is a central figure.
Mar 17, 2009
This table shows how Republican senators who belong to the 111th Congress voted on three previous arms control treaties: the 2003 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT); the 1999 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT); and the 1992 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).
Apr 15, 2008
Ratification by the United States of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) requires 67 votes in favor in the Senate. On October 13, 1999, the Senate failed to ratify the CTBT in a vote of 51-48. This was the first security-related treaty in 80 years that the Senate did not ratify.