UN chief Ban Ki-moon today called the US, China and other nuclear-armed states to end the ‘madness’ of atomic testing by finally ratifying the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). Speaking at an event in Austrian capital Vienna, Ban noted that the nuclear testing poisons water, causes cancers and pollutes the area with radioactive fallout for generations to come.
The CTBT is a multilateral treaty by which the nations agree to ban all nuclear explosions in all environments, for military or civilian purposes. It had opened for signature in 1996. The treaty has been ratified by 164 including Russia, France and Britain, three of the nine countries which have the nuclear weapons. But the other six in the nuclear club – the United States, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel are yet to ratify it. In the absence of these countries’ ratification, the treaty won’t come into force.
India has not signed the CTBT because of its discriminatory nature in its present format as it is advantageous to the nuclear weapon holders. Despite its reservations on the CTBT, India met the basic requirements of the treaty by stating on May 27, 1998 that it would observe a voluntary moratorium and refrain from conducting the underground nuclear test explosions.
