Nuclear test-ban free globe distant

By Brahma Chellaney

CANBERRA (JP): Recent decisions by U.S. President Bill Clinton and French President Jacques Chirac to give up low-yield testing demands and agree to a total test prohibition followed worldwide outrage over efforts to turn the proposed Comprehensive Test Ban into a threshold test ban. While applauding those decisions, the dangers that still threaten the achievement of a genuine Comprehensive Test Ban should not be overlooked.

Beyond the hype over the latest U.S. and French concessions lie major challenges that call for vigilance by non-nuclear states at a time when the new post-Cold War opportunities to rid the world of all weapons of mass destruction are in danger of slipping away.

Even if negotiations proceed smoothly in Geneva and a comprehensive ban agreement is reached by the end of 1996, the treaty is unlikely to come into force before 1999. In the lengthy interim period between an agreement and its entry into force, the world would still be racked by nuclear testing. That China will continue to test over the next few years has been underscored by President Jiang Zemin's assertion that testing will cease only when the Comprehensive Test Ban treaty comes into effect.

The treaty will not enter into force for at least two years after being opened for signature -- one of the few points of consensus to emerge so far in Geneva. Also, it will take two to three years after agreement is attained to erect a verification regime consisting of networks of seismological, radionuclide, hydroacoustic and infrasound monitoring stations. All the required technologies are not even commercially available at present.

Clinton's concession to forgo "hydronuclear" and other low- yield explosions under a comprehensive ban is aimed at salvaging U.S. arms-control credibility, battered by a Pentagon proposal to shield nuclear tests with yields of up to 500 tonnes of TNT equivalent -- or 1,000 times the explosive power of the largest conventional weapons. Chirac's decision -- not an unambiguous acceptance of the "zero option" -- was designed to deflect the global furor over France's renewed testing program.

Other nuclear powers appear to remain reluctant to give up their insistence on special rights. If China had its way, it would like to leave a test ban loophole large enough for it to conduct full-scale testing in the guise of "peaceful nuclear explosions". Indonesia could lead the non-nuclear world in a diplomatic campaign to persuade all nuclear states to lend full support to a tightly written, zero-yield Comprehensive Test Ban with stringent verification mechanisms.

Another challenge is closing all the current loopholes in the Comprehensive Test Ban "rolling draft text". Unless the non- nuclear nations are vigilant, the nuclear states will be able to achieve at Geneva -- like at the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty extension conference in New York -- a final outcome that serves their interests more than those of the treaty. With the non- aligned movement in disarray and the current global political- military situation in an apparent state of transition, Indonesia should play a leadership role on disarmament issues.

The nuclear powers so far have gone unchallenged in their strategy to negotiate a Comprehensive Test Ban that does not define what constitutes a nuclear test explosion. Unless the test ban is explicitly a zero-yield treaty and defines what is prohibited, the latest U.S. and French assurances would be meaningless. The ban should clearly forbid any release of nuclear energy during experiments involving the assembly or compression of fission or fusion material by chemical high explosives.

Indonesia should insist that the Comprehensive Test Ban proscribe test preparations, like drilling and excavation -- a proposal currently opposed by the nuclear-weapons states. Such a ban, which would entail on-site inspections, will help reinforce a denial of excess to the hydro-nuclear testing regime. Hydro- nuclear experiments, conducted only at underground test sites for safety reasons, can be employed to design new weapons.

Without on-site verification and a test-preparation ban, it will be difficult to detect tiny explosions, which could be hidden from the outside world in a variety of ways including by camouflaging them as chemical explosions with yields of more than 300 tonnes of TNT equivalent -- a comfortable threshold for hydro-nuclear cheating.

A true and long-lasting Comprehensive Treaty Ban also demands that it permit no state to withdraw. The 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention, the world's first comprehensive, non-discriminatory disarmament agreement, has no "escape" clause. Yet, in the case of the Comprehensive Treaty Ban -- a largely symbolic step toward nuclear disarmament since all the powers would have completed their nuclear modernization plans by the time it came into force -- some states insist on a right of withdrawal protected by a "supreme national interest" clause. Bearing in mind that the five powers have already detonated 2,540 atomic devices in 2,063 tests over several decades, this demand is not only abominable but shows a serious lack of commitment to downgrading the utility of nuclear weapons.

A parallel cannot be drawn with the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. The withdrawal clause in that treaty was designed as a safety valve, to give the vast majority of its members -- the non-nuclear target states -- the right to quit the treaty if they individually perceived that their national interests had been imperiled by new international developments, or by the refusal of the nuclear powers to honor their part of the bargain. The Comprehensive Test Ban, in contrast, is targeted at the five powers, and if just one of them were to withdraw, the treaty could collapse.

Indonesia should rally non-nuclear states against an unfettered right of withdrawal since it could seriously threaten the test ban's long-term survival. A nuclear state could withdraw from the treaty, conduct a series of tests, and then rejoin the pact, making a mockery of the Comprehensive Test Ban.

It is significant that the Clinton announcement followed a deal with the Pentagon and Joint Chiefs of Staff. The deal provides for the president to maintain "test readiness" and invoke the escape clause if the Defense and Energy departments ever express lack of confidence in the reliability of a single essential weapons system. By withdrawing temporarily from a Comprehensive Test Ban, the United States would be able to carry out tests on the concerned weapons system.

Even as world pressure pushes the nuclear powers towards a total test ban, there is no international convention prohibiting the use of nuclear weapons. The UN General Assembly has referred to the International Court of Justice the question whether the use, or threat of use, of nuclear weapons violates general international law. This question has assumed greater significance because the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty's indefinite extension implicitly legitimized weapons of genocide in the 50th anniversary year of the world's two atomic holocausts.

It would make sense for the Comprehensive Test Ban to provide for no-first-use of nuclear weapons. Without a no-first-use provision, it would become illegal to detonate a nuclear device at home but perfectly lawful to test it by dropping it over another nation's territory. As the first atomic attack in history involved an untested bomb, "doing a Hiroshima" on an adversary could become a permissible security scheme.

Professor Brahma Chellaney is an arms-control specialist at the Australian National University's Peace Research Center.