Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
The Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT), formally known as the 1963 Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water, prohibited all test detonations of nuclear weapons except for those conducted underground. It is also abbreviated as the Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT) and Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (NTBT), though the latter may also refer to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), which succeeded the PTBT for ratifying parties.
Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water
5 August 1963
Moscow, Soviet Union
10 October 1963
Ratification by the Soviet Union, United Kingdom, and United States
126, plus 10 signed but not ratified
(see complete list)
Governments of the United States of America, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
English and Russian
Negotiations initially focused on a comprehensive ban, but that was abandoned because of technical questions surrounding the detection of underground tests and Soviet concerns over the intrusiveness of proposed verification methods. The impetus for the test ban was provided by rising public anxiety over the magnitude of nuclear tests, particularly tests of new thermonuclear weapons (hydrogen bombs), and the resulting nuclear fallout. A test ban was also seen as a means of slowing nuclear proliferation and the nuclear arms race. Though the PTBT did not halt proliferation or the arms race, its enactment did coincide with a substantial decline in the concentration of radioactive particles in the atmosphere.
The PTBT was signed by the governments of the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States in Moscow on 5 August 1963 before it was opened for signature by other countries. The treaty formally went into effect on 10 October 1963. Since then, 123 other states have become party to the treaty. Ten states have signed but not ratified the treaty.
Negotiations[edit]
Early efforts[edit]
In 1945, Britain and Canada made an early call for an international discussion on controlling atomic power. At the time, the US had yet to formulate a cohesive policy or strategy on nuclear weapons. Taking advantage of this was Vannevar Bush, who had initiated and administered the Manhattan Project, but nevertheless had a long-term policy goal of banning on nuclear weapons production. As a first step in this direction, Bush proposed an international agency dedicated to nuclear control.[13] Bush unsuccessfully argued in 1952 that the US pursue a test ban agreement with the Soviet Union before testing its first thermonuclear weapon,[5] but his interest in international controls was echoed in the 1946 Acheson–Lilienthal Report, which had been commissioned by President Harry S. Truman to help construct US nuclear weapons policy. J. Robert Oppenheimer, who had led Los Alamos National Laboratory during the Manhattan Project, exerted significant influence over the report, particularly in its recommendation of an international body that would control production of and research on the world's supply of uranium and thorium. A version of the Acheson-Lilienthal plan was presented to the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission (UNAEC) as the Baruch Plan in June 1946. The Baruch Plan proposed that an International Atomic Development Authority would control all research on and material and equipment involved in the production of atomic energy.[14][15] Though Dwight D. Eisenhower, then the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, was not a significant figure in the Truman administration on nuclear questions, he did support Truman's nuclear control policy, including the Baruch Plan's provision for an international control agency, provided that the control system was accompanied by "a system of free and complete inspection."[16]
Implementation[edit]
Provisions[edit]
The treaty declares as its "principal aim the speediest possible achievement of an agreement on general and complete disarmament under strict international control" and explicitly states the goal of achieving a comprehensive test ban (one that bans underground tests). The treaty permanently forbids the parties to the treaty from conducting, permitting, or encouraging any nuclear explosion in the atmosphere, outer space, or underwater as well as "any other nuclear explosion" that threatens to send nuclear debris into another state's territory.[172] The wording "any other nuclear explosion" prohibited peaceful nuclear explosions because of the difficulty in differentiating those from military tests without expanded verification measures.[2]
Per the compromise forged by US delegates Adrian S. Fisher and John McNaughton in Moscow, Article 3 of the treaty allows states to deposit instruments of ratification or accession with the government of the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, or United States, thereby avoiding the issue of the treaty appearing to legitimize governments lacking universal recognition.[158] Article 4 reflects the compromise struck by Gromyko and Harriman in Moscow on departure from the treaty. It recognizes the sovereign right of states to withdraw from treaties, as Khrushchev argued, but explicitly grants parties the right to withdraw if "extraordinary events... have jeopardized the supreme interests of its country," per the US demand.[156][172]