Int’l community campaigns against nuclear tests

This Wednesday, August 29, the International Day against Nuclear Tests is celebrated the world over, in a bid to promote initiatives aimed at bringing an end to nuclear testing.

According to the Disarmament and Sensitive Technology Division of Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Relations, “banning nuclear tests is the first step towards making nuclear weapons illegal.”

The ministry noted that, in 1996, the UN introduced the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), which is yet to be ratified by countries in possession of atomic weapons—like the US, China, North Korea, Israel, India, Pakistan, Egypt, and Iran—which has kept the document from taking effect. There cannot be any guarantees that nuclear tests will be interrupted until all of these countries ratify the deal.

“Twenty-two years later, the CTBT has still not been brought into force. That would require all 48 countries with relevant nuclear technology to sign it, which hasn’t taken place yet,” the division reported.

Nuclear test with a missile, conducted by North Korea – KCNA, Agência Lusa

The Brazilian Foreign Ministry went on to state that, despite not being effective, “it serves to discourage the conduction of nuclear tests. Proof thereof is the recent criticism from all over the world against the atomic tests carried out by North Korea.”

Brazil on the global stage

Brazil has proved to be a forerunner in the fight against nuclear proliferation. President Michel Temer was the first to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, back in September last year, at the UN headquarters, in New York.

The conference for signing the document was proposed by Brazil, South Africa, Austria, Ireland, Mexico, and Nigeria late in 2016. The agreement bans signatory nations from developing, testing, producing, acquiring, owning, and stocking nuclear weapons or any sort of explosive nuclear device. To encourage and publicize the agreement, the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons is celebrated on September 26 all across the world.

History

The world’s first nuclear test occurred on July 16, 1945, in a desert in New Mexico, US, after which some 2 thousand nuclear tests have been registered. The International Day Against Nuclear Tests was declared in December, 2009, in UN Resolution 64/35.

The date was selected because that was when the Semipalatinsk Test Site—one of the world’s biggest nuclear testing centers—was shut down, in 1991.

The area stretches over 18 thousand km² and is located in the steppes of Kazakhstan—called Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic at the time. It was the site chosen for nuclear testing by the former Soviet Union.

In the 40 years during which experiments were conducted in the region—from 1949 to 1989—the Soviet Union set off 456 nuclear bombs—340 in tunnels, 116 on the surface. Today, the area is known as the world’s most radioactive spot.

Conference in Kazakhstan

In observance of the International Day Against Nuclear Tests, Kazakhstan’s capital Astana has hosted the International Conference of the CTBT Organization, entitled Remembering the Past, Looking to the Future, from August 28 to September 2.

Astana, capital city of Kazakhstan – TV Brasil

The five-day event includes debates on the role of nuclear disarmament and the non-proliferation in building lasting global peace, with efforts to promote the status of the CTBT. A joint statement will also be presented at the end of the conference.

“Kazakhstan organized this conference with a view to implementing the nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation initiatives. We have to combine efforts from governments, officials, scientists, entrepreneurs, artists, and millions of people around the world, in order to prevent the tragic mistakes committed in the past from happening again,” said Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Conference participants will have a chance to visit the former Semipalatinsk site as well as a museum in the city of Kurchatov—the center of soviet nuclear testing.