Test Ban Treaty

Agreement signed by the USA, the USSR, and the UK on 5 August 1963 contracting to test nuclear weapons only underground. All nuclear weapons testing in the atmosphere, in outer space, and under water was banned. In the following two years 90 other nations signed the treaty, the only major nonsignatories being France and China, which continued underwater and ground-level tests. In January 1996 France announced the ending of its test programme, and supported the implementation of a universal test ban. The treaty did not restrict or regulate underground testing, or the possession or use of nuclear weapons during wartime.

Concern over the dangers of radioactive fallout from nuclear testing above ground had become an important issue by the mid 1950s, but the two largest nuclear powers, the USA and the USSR, failed to agree on its regulation. The Cuban missile crisis of 1962, which took the world closer than it had ever been to nuclear war, brought the matter to the fore, and the Test Ban Treaty was signed in Moscow the following year.

In 1993 representatives of 37 states, including the UK, China, France, Russia, and the USA, met in Geneva to draw up a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). The Treaty was created in 1996 to prevent proliferation of nuclear weapons, but was rejected by the USA in 1999, with 17 other countries also still to sign. The US rejection effectively stifles the CTBT. See also disarmament.