Ten years since India and Pakistan conducted nuclear tests

Ten years ago, in May 1998, India and Pakistan carried out a total of five nuclear tests, thus breaking the de-facto moratorium that had been in place since the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) opened for signature in September 1996. On 11 May 1998, the Indian Government carried out its first underground nuclear test since 1974 at its testing site at Pokhran, close to the border with Pakistan. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee promptly congratulated the scientists and engineers responsible for conducting the "successful tests", which were carried out without any warning to the international community and caused universal condemnation, including criticism by the UN Security Council. India carried out two more tests on 13 May 1998 and then announced that it had finished its testing programme. Pakistan retaliated by conducting two of its own nuclear tests on 28 May 1998 at the Ras Koh Range, leading to serious concerns of an arms race in the region.

When these events took place, 150 States had already signed the CTBT, demonstrating their commitment to nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. Six of the 44 Annex 2 States, whose ratification is necessary for the Treaty's entry into force, had also ratified by May 1998, including France and the United Kingdom, which are both nuclear weapon States. The Treaty prohibits all nuclear weapon test explosions and all other nuclear explosions (including peaceful nuclear explosions) on Earth. It constrains the development of new nuclear weapons, the qualitative improvement of existing weapons, and the development of advanced new types of weapons. Although India was the first nation in the world to call for a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and initially participated in negotiations for the Treaty at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, it expressed discontent with the final draft of the Treaty and announced its intention not to sign. Pakistan initially voted in favour of the Treaty in 1996 after it was brought before the United Nations to bypass the Indian veto. However, Pakistan subsequently declined to accede to the CTBT unless India did the same.

A global verification regime, which is being established to monitor compliance with the CTBT, is now nearing completion. This regime consists of an International Monitoring System (IMS) with 337 monitoring facilities which use seismic, hydroacoustic, infrasound, and radionuclide technologies to monitor the underground, the oceans and the atmosphere for any sign of a nuclear explosion. These facilities are located in 89 countries around the world. When an event occurs, such as a nuclear test or an earthquake, the IMS records its location, the time it occurred and its magnitude. This information is sent to the International Data Centre (IDC) in Vienna, which is based at the headquarters of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) in Vienna, via a global satellite communications network. The IDC provides relevant data electronically to the Member States. Once the Treaty enters into force, on-site inspections will take place where concerns about compliance arise. The IDC was still installing its first release of applications software when the Indian Government informed the media that it had conducted a series of nuclear tests in May 1998. When the Government of Pakistan made a similar announcement just two weeks later, the IDC was already receiving data from a number of its primary seismic stations. The automatic processing of these data provided reasonable first estimates of the location of the events, which were passed on to Member States. Given the limited development of the network of monitoring stations at that time, the monitoring and analysis of events in Pakistan was impressive.

Since 1998, the CTBTO's global monitoring system has expanded considerably. When the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) announced that it had conducted a nuclear test in October 2006, the event was well recorded around the world by the IMS. Over 20 IMS seismic stations detected signals originating from the test and within two hours, Member States received an automatic analysis of the data, providing them with preliminary information on the time, location and magnitude of the event. Although only two thirds of the 337 IMS facilities were operational at the time, the system was also able to measure valuable radioactive noble gases, which are the "smoking gun" of a nuclear explosion. As well as successfully detecting and analyzing the explosion, the monitoring system proved that its verification capabilities were significantly better than had been envisaged by the negotiators of the Treaty in 1996.

17 new monitoring facilities have been installed and 52 have been certified since the DPRK's declared test and are now contributing data to the IDC operations. The total number of installed IMS facilities currently stands at 254, of which 230 have been certified. The number of noble gas systems has increased by 70 percent and the network of hydroacoustic stations is now virtually complete. Stations installed in the United States, France and the United Kingdom are also nearing completion. A facility agreement with the Russian Federation entered into force in 2006, which grants the CTBTO the legal and administrative authority to work on a State's territory to establish, upgrade or provisionally operate and maintain monitoring stations. Seven facilities have been certified in the Russian Federation since then. It is further planned that almost 90% of the monitoring facilities provided by the Treaty will be installed by 2009. The establishment of this global network has involved considerable investment so the CTBTO ensures its sustainability through cost-effective and reliable long-term operations. Since 2006 the volume of data transmitted to the IDC by monitoring facilities has tripled and the daily content of data products provided to Member States has doubled. Nearly 900 authorized institutions in over 90 countries now receive raw data and data analyses from the IDC. Software improvements have led to the delivery of more detailed and significantly higher quality data products. The Treaty's on-site inspection capabilities are progressing towards operational readiness. The first large scale integrated field exercise for on-site inspections will take place at the former Soviet nuclear test site, Semipalatinsk, in Kazakhstan, in September 2008. This will be an important milestone in the CTBTO's history and one of the most ambitious on-site verification undertakings ever. 40 inspectors will participate and 40 tonnes of equipment will be shipped from Vienna to Semipalatinsk.