UN spotlights nuclear weapon states’ refusal to ratify test ban treaty at divisive time

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — With the U.S., Russia, China and other countries that have nuclear weapons refusing to ratify the treaty that bans atomic testing, the United Nations warned on Monday that any new test could trigger another arms race.

U.N. disarmament chief Izumi Nakamitsu told the U.N. General Assembly that it was meeting to mark International Day against Nuclear Tests at a time of “deep geopolitical tension, growing division and diminishing trust,” as well as concern about the possible resumption of testing.

Late last year, the United States and Russia, which have the world’s largest nuclear arsenals, threatened to resume nuclear testing, setting off global alarm bells. President Donald Trump accused Russia and China of conducting tests, which they deny.

“Even contemplating such a course is dangerous,” Nakamitsu warned. “Any resumption would erode decades of restraint, deepen mistrust and risk triggering reciprocal tests and an arms race. This must never become reality.”

When the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was adopted in 1996, it had a very high bar to enter into force. It had to be ratified by 44 specific countries, and nine of them have not yet done so.

The United States, China, Iran, Egypt and Israel have signed but not ratified the treaty. India, Pakistan and North Korea have neither signed nor ratified. Russia signed and ratified, but revoked its ratification in 2023.

Robert Floyd, head of the organization overseeing the treaty known as the CTBT, told the General Assembly that Tonga’s ratification last month brings the number of parties to the treaty to 179.

Since 1945, he said the planet has seen more than 2,000 nuclear test explosions, but in the past three decades fewer than 12. He cautioned, however, that “the international scene is tense, full of mistrust,” including about nuclear testing

If nuclear testing resumes, Floyd warned, the result would be new technologically advanced nuclear arsenals, soaring risks of nuclear miscalculation, and “devastation from nuclear `bad luck.’”

The International Day Against Nuclear Tests was established to commemorate the Aug. 29, 1991, shutdown of the former Soviet nuclear test site at Semipalatinsk, now in Kazakhstan, which saw 456 nuclear tests, Floyd said.

It also puts a spotlight on victims of the atomic era.

Tina Cordova described to the U.N. General Assembly how five generations of her family were exposed to radiation that began with the testing of the first atomic bomb on July 16, 1945, in New Mexico — and how every succeeding generation until today has suffered from cancer.

“We were never warned before or after of the danger, so we lived our lives off the land as we always did,” said Cordova, who co-founded an organization called the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium 21 years ago to spotlight the negative health effects of radiation suffered by the people of New Mexico.

She stressed that they were not alone.

Nuclear testing took place around the world, she said, and people living in Guam, Tahiti, Kazakhstan and Aboriginal areas of Australia as well as in Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and Montana were also exposed — including uranium workers and their families.

“We’re the people that became the collateral damage to the development and testing of nuclear devices and were left to deal with the consequences on our own,” Cordova said. “It is why we fight for acknowledgment and assistance.”