Disarmament

Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Meeting

Statement by Hon Phil Goff Minister of Trade and Disarmament and Arms Control, 24 September 2008

Your Excellencies,

The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was passed twelve years ago today.

It is a matter of profound regret and concern that after this period of time it has yet to be ratified and come into force.

The world witnessed in 1945, at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the dreadful human consequences of nuclear detonation.

For decades after that nuclear powers used the Pacific, our region, to test their nuclear weapons.

While the testing has ceased after many years of protests by New Zealand and our Pacific neighbours, nuclear weapons states still possess today 27,000 nuclear warheads, each with a destructive power eight to forty times that of the bombs exploded in 1945.

Those weapons represent a threat to human existence.

New Zealand remains strongly committed to a nuclear weapon free world.

We will continue, for as long as is necessary, to advocate for nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation.

The CTBT is an integral part of our objectives. It is inexcusable that this critical Treaty has not yet entered into force.

Any testing of nuclear weapons constitutes an affront to the environment and an unnecessary risk to world peace and stability.

We call on all states that are yet to ratify the Agreement to do so forthwith and in particular those states whose ratification is required for entry into force.

New Zealand reaffirms its commitment to working with like-minded countries to achieve entry into force of the Treaty as soon as possible.

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