Petition Tag - comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty

The threat of nuclear weapons is a real and present danger. The Unites States has not produced new nuclear weapons since 1991, and has not conducted an underground nuclear test since 1992. However, the design life of nuclear weapons is 10-20 years and the U.S. nuclear weapons are 20 to 30 years old. It would be beneficial to dispose of the nuclear warheads considering the functionality, security, and safety of the nuclear weapons.

If all 180 countries ratify the treaty to dispose of nuclear weapons, it would eliminate the need to secure nuclear stockpiles against plausible terrorists and criminal threat. It would also eliminate costs incurred securing nuclear weapons; costs nuclear managers and officials pay to bear the difficulty of enhanced security; secrecy; concerns over national sovereignty; bureaucratic inertia; and the utter difficulty of changing people’s outlooks and daily conduct of those who handle or guard nuclear weapons and materials.

The U.S. Senate rejected ratification of this Treaty in 1999 by a 48-51 vote. This marks the first defeat of a weapons control treaty in the history of the United States Senate.

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