CIAO DATE: 04/01

The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty: Next Steps

Dr. Christopher Chyba
Ambassador Thomas Graham, Jr.

The Center for International Security and Cooperation
The Lawyers Alliance for World Security

Roundtable Discussion
Stanford University
July 19, 2000

 

Message From Sponsors

The debate surrounding the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) is as multifaceted as it is important. In addition to arms control and non-proliferation elements, it involves scientific and technical disciplines, military planning, international relations, and national security strategy. Sharing a concern that the debate prior to the Senate’s rejection of the CTBT was insufficient to address fully the complex mixture of issues involved, the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University and the Lawyers Alliance for World Security (LAWS) set out to undertake a thorough examination of the Treaty.

On July 19, 2000 CISAC and LAWS gathered forty preeminent scientists, security experts, and political analysts for a Roundtable Discussion on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty at Stanford University. The day—long seminar was intended to explore the diverse set of topics that arose during the October 1999 Senate debate of the Treaty and to develop a consensus on steps that the United States should now take with regard to the CTBT. This booklet includes a transcript of that discussion along with a collection of short papers submitted by experts who were unable to attend. A series of Background Papers submitted prior to the Roundtable will form the basis of a LAWS White Paper on the CTBT to be published in October 2000. We hope that the discussion and analysis herein will prove useful to future consideration of this most important issue.

We are grateful to all of the participants. We would especially like to thank General Andy Goodpaster and Ambassador Jim Goodby for their assistance in shaping the Roundtable Discussion and Taylor Crawford Bucci and Damien LaVera for their work in putting it together. CISAC and LAWS would also like to thank the Ploughshares Fund. Their financial support made this Roundtable Discussion possible.

 

 

Full Text of Paper (pdf)