1996 - a productive year in disarmament diplomacy:

On 8 July the International Court of Justice provided the Advisory Opinion on the Threat and Use of Nuclear Weapons that the UN General Assembly requested.

On 12 August the Canberra Commission made up of 17 experts presented their report to the Australian government which had initiated the process to set out ‘practical steps towards a nuclear weapon free world’

On 10 September the General Assembly adopted the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which was opened for signature on 24 September 1996.

The World Court Project

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the judicial branch of the UN, and the highest court in the world on general questions of international law. A group of non-governmental organisations, including IPPNW, formed the World Court Project to work with governments towards the General Assembly requesting legal guidance from the International Court of Justice about nuclear weapons.

In May 1993, the World Health Assembly (WHA) of the World Health Organization (WHO) passed a resolution requesting the World Court to bring down an opinion on the legality of the use of nuclear weapons. The issue was next discussed in the General Assembly, and the governments asked the International Court of Justice to address the question: “Is the threat or use of nuclear weapons permitted in any circumstance under international law?”

In its advisory opinion, the International Court of Justice concluded that "the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law." As part of its reply, the Court unanimously held: “There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.”

Endorsed by every judge on the Court, its statement of the disarmament obligation is now the authoritative interpretation of Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Article VI obligates all states “to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”

The Canberra Commission

Canberra Commission brought together 17 experts convened by Richard Butler and included General Lee Butler and Robert McNamara of the USA, Michel Rochard, former PM of France and also included confirmed anti-nuclear advocates Jayantha Dhanapala of Sri Lanka, Joseph Rotblat of Pugwash, Swedish Member of the European Parliament Maj Britt Theorin, and Dr. Ron McCoy from Malaysia.

According to Rebecca Johnson, the Canberra Commission “analysed the opportunities for creating a better, post-cold-war security order, debunked the myths of nuclear deterrence and offered some practical steps for moving towards nuclear disarmament. Its analysis recognised that ascribing security value to nuclear weapons was illogical and would become increasingly counter-productive for governments seeking to establish a better security order for the future.”

The Commission’s report has a moral clarity reflecting the end of the Cold War, which had “created a new climate for international action to eliminate nuclear weapons, a new opportunity. It must be exploited quickly or it will be lost.”

The Commission identified a series of immediate steps:

1) Taking nuclear forces off alert,
2) Removal of warheads from delivery vehicles,
3) Ending deployment of non-strategic nuclear weapons,
4) Ending nuclear testing,
5) Initiating negotiations to further reduce United States and Russian nuclear arsenals, and
6) Agreement amongst the nuclear weapon states of reciprocal no first use undertakings, and of a non-use undertaking by them in relation to the non-nuclear weapon states.

The Commission also identified a series of reinforcing steps
1) Action to prevent further horizontal proliferation,
2) Developing verification arrangements for a nuclear weapon free world,
3) Cessation of the production of fissile material for nuclear explosive purposes.

The Canberra Commission emphasizes the linkage between non-proliferation and disarmament:

“The problem of nuclear proliferation is inextricably linked to the continued possession of nuclear weapons by a handful of states. A world environment where proliferation is under control will facilitate the disarmament process and movement toward final elimination, and vice versa.”

The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty

Negotiation of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was successfully completed at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva in 1996. The treaty bans all nuclear explosions in all environments, for military of civilian purposes. A ban on testing is an essential step towards nuclear disarmament because it helps to block dangerous nuclear competition and new nuclear threats from emerging.

Since the middle of the 20th Century, more than 2,000 nuclear tests have been conducted throughout the world, with direct, serious, and long-term adverse health and environmental effects. It is estimated that atmospheric testing directly produced 430,000 fatal human cancers by the year 2000. Eventually, that total will be 2.4 million.

First proposed by Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in 1954. Negotiations between the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union were first started in 1958 following Premier Khrushchev’s announcement of a unilateral test ban and President Eisenhower’s subsequent proposal for test-ban negotiations. Efforts receded in the wake of the May 1960 U-2 incident in which a U.S. reconnaissance plane was shot down over the USSR leading to the souring of U.S.-Soviet relations. After the Cuban Missile Crisis, which brought the US and USSR close to a nuclear exchange, discussions were resurrected, and resulted in incremental measures, the Limited and Partial Test Ban Treaties.

It was only in 1996 that we had a comprehensive ban on nuclear testing. However, technological advances in nuclear weapons research and development mean that a ban on nuclear test explosions by itself cannot prevent qualitative improvements of nuclear arsenals, using nuclear testing in laboratories. Efforts to improve nuclear arsenals and to make nuclear weapons more usable in warfare will jeopardise the test-ban and non-proliferation regimes.

It is essential to recall that the 1996 CTBT was largely the product of decades of hard work, dedication, and advocacy by NGOs, scientific experts, and millions of ordinary people around the world. They have long understood that ending nuclear testing is essential for three powerful reasons: to impede the development of new types of nuclear warheads and reduce dangerous nuclear arms competition; to obstruct the emergence of new nuclear powers; and to prevent further devastation of human health and the global environment.