Digests and Blog

  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…

At the mid-point in the month-long 2015 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference in New York, there is growing frustration about the new approach being pursued by Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and other Arab League states on the goal of convening a conference to discuss a weapons of mass destruction (WMD) free-zone in the Middle East. A proposal engineered and advanced by Egypt would give the UN Secretary General the sole responsibility to hold a conference on establishing such a zone. But this proposal, which would cut out Finnish diplomat Jaako Laajava—the…

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) recently led an experiment designed to improve the United States’ ability to detect underground nuclear explosions using conventional and advanced detection technology. This experiment was the fourth in a series of experiments conducted since 2011. The experiment tested many detection tools, such as: high-resolution accelerometers, infrasound, seismic, explosive performance, electromagnetic, ground-based LIDAR (light detection and ranging), digital photogrammetry data, and satellite-based interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR…

As 190 countries meet in New York this month to discuss the implementation of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), a number of steps can be taken to accelerate the pace of disarmament and ensure that the world’s most dangerous weapon do not spread. The NPT, which entered into force in March of 1970, is the most comprehensive nuclear arms control agreement in the world. The NPT divides the 190 party members into two groups. Five countries are recognized in the NPT as nuclear-weapon states and have committed to disarm all existing nuclear weapons. These states are the United States,…