Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization: Preparatory Commission

Abstract

Negotiators spent more than two years elaborating the complex, long sought Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), yet it took only six months between the treaty's opening for signature in September 1996 and the opening of the Preparatory Commission's Provisional Technical Secretariat. This rapid pace to establish the Preparatory Commission indicated the urgency that states signatories believed was essential to prepare for entry into force, which they thought was imminent. The Preparatory Commission has been rapidly establishing the 337 facilities of the International Monitoring System, the intricate International Data Center, and the modalities of the on-site inspection provisions, all of which will monitor compliance with the treaty's verification regime. The Preparatory Commission also works to advance entry into force by working with states to sign and ratify the treaty. The Commission opened its doors in Vienna, Austria with seven people on the staff in Vienna, in March 1997, and the treaty's verification regime is now more than 90 percent complete. The Preparatory Commission consists of two basic entities: States Members, and a Provisional Technical Secretariat (PTS). The States Members meet in Working Groups to establish the direction and recommendations for the implementation of the verification regime, budget, administrative and legal matters. This is a complicated endeavor that involves highly technical issues regarding the establishment of specifications and certification procedures for each station of the IMS, calibrating the seismic stations, authenticating the data at the IDC, installing the global communications infrastructure, updating software and each of the technologies to meet higher standards, elaborating procedures for the 17 different OSI techniques, and establishing the budget and legal means for all of the above. States cannot request on-site inspections until the treaty enters into force. Once it enters into force, the interim Preparatory Commission will become the CTBT Organization and the PTS will be called the Technical Secretariat