Digests and Blog

  Today, as part of the USA Freedom Act, the Senate passed language to implement key requirements of two important, and long overdue agreements that strengthen global efforts to prevent and counter nuclear terrorism, paving the way for their ratification. The two agreements —the 2005 amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material (CPPNM) and the 2005 International Convention on the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism (ICSANT) – require state parties to better protect nuclear materials and to punish acts of nuclear terrorism. While the United States already…

The Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff delivered an unusually clear and coherent speech on U.S. missile defense policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) May 19 in Washington.  Although Adm. James A. Winnefeld, Jr. emphasized in his remarks that U.S. missile defenses should be of no concern to Russia or China, it is easy to see how parts of his comprehensive presentation could be viewed from Moscow or Beijing as hypocritical, or at least deeply ironic. Not About Russia and China During his presentation, Winnefeld reiterated the long-standing position of the…

The Home Stretch With only about a month to go until the June 30 deadline for completing a comprehensive nuclear deal, Iran and six world powers have made considerable progress on the final text of the agreement but still have some tough issues to resolve. Iranian and French officials have recently said the negotiations may extend a few days into July. U.S. officials have reiterated they intend to complete the negotiations by the end of June. Over the past month, technical teams have been hard at work in New York and Vienna working out the details of the comprehensive agreement and drafting…

  On April 2 in Lausanne, Switzerland, Iran the P5+1 (China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) reached a breakthrough on the parameters of an agreement to verifiably roll back and constrain Iran’s nuclear program. As 30 leading nonproliferation specialists detailed in an April 6 statement, a comprehensive agreement based on these parameters would be a net win for nonproliferation and international security. Yet, a concern repeatedly voiced against the developing deal, which would allow for a limited Iranian uranium-enrichment program, is that it will…

Following the CTBTO's Nov. 3 to Dec. 9, 2014 Integrated Field Exercise (IFE14) in Jordan's Dead Sea region, experts from around the world and across the Middle East gathered in Ramat-Gan, Israel from April 12-16 for the first of two workshops to evaluate the results. Around 100 experts specializing in nuclear physics, geophysics, seismology, communication, health, safety, and verification-related areas from 30 countries participated. The field exercise was designed to replicate a scenario in which a country has been accused of conducting a nuclear test and the on-site inspection team…

Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and Kazakhstan Foreign Minister Erland Idrissov will lead the next Article XIV Conference to take place September 29, 2015 in New York. Japan and Kazakhstan were unanimously nominated at a meeting of member states to lead the international efforts to implement the CTBT for a period of two years, beginning with the September Article XIV Conference. Article XIV of the CTBT stipulates that if the CTBT has not entered into force three years after the date of the anniversary of its opening for signature (1996), member states may request to hold a…

On April 27, the States Party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) began their month-long review of the treaty since the 2010 NPT Review Conference. Over the first few days of the conference, dozens of states and groups of states expressed their strong support for the entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and of the full development of the verification regime. Excerpts are available online. In his address to the conference on April 29, Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) Executive Secretary Lassina Zerbo highlighted the need…

On March 20, Angola ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), bringing the total number of states who have ratified the treaty to 164. Executive Secretary of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) Lassina Zerbo remarked of the ratification, “I congratulate Angola on its ratification of the CTBT. It is a powerful message of peace to Africa and to the world. This development is an unequivocal reminder of Angola’s commitment towards creating an Africa free of nuclear weapons, as an essential component of a nuclear-weapons-free world.” The United States and seven more…

The third Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons was held in Vienna on Dec. 8-9, 2014. The first conference was held in Oslo, Norway, and the second was held in Nayarit, Mexico. Notably, the Vienna conference was the first conference attended by the United States. The U.S. statement, given by Special Representative of the President for Nuclear Nonproliferation Adam Scheinman, can be found here. The conferences aim to discourage the use and proliferation of nuclear weapons by discussing the dangers they pose to civilians and the general public in terms of contamination of…

The Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) carried out their second integrated field exercise (IFE14) in Jordan’s Dead Sea region from Nov. 3 to Dec. 9, 2014. The field exercise was designed to replicate a scenario in which a country (in this case, the fictional “Maridia”) has been accused of conducting a nuclear test and now the CTBTO must find evidence to either repudiate or validate this claim and find the specific nuclear test explosion site. Once the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) enters into force, any state party will have the right to…