General Assembly

Distr. GENERAL  

7 December 1988

ORIGINAL:
ENGLISH

                                               A/RES/43/64
                                               73rd plenary meeting
                                               7 December 1988
 
           Urgent need for a comprehensive nuclear-test-ban treaty
 
      The General Assembly,
 
      Convinced that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,
 
      Convinced of the consequent urgent need for an end to the nuclear-arms
 race and the immediate and verifiable reduction and ultimate elimination of
 nuclear weapons,
 
      Convinced that an end to nuclear testing by all States in all
 environments for all time is an essential step in order to prevent the
 qualitative improvement and development of nuclear weapons and their further
 proliferation and to contribute, along with other concurrent efforts to reduce
 nuclear arms, to the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons,
 
      Welcoming the ongoing negotiations between the Union of Soviet Socialist
 Republics and the United States of America in accordance with their joint
 statement of 17 September 1987, and noting the significant developments on
 improved verification arrangements to facilitate the ratification of the
 Treaty between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist
 Republics on the Limitation of Underground Nuclear Weapon Tests, signed on
 3 July 1974, and the Treaty between the United States of America and the Union
 of Soviet Socialist Republics on Underground Nuclear Explosions for Peaceful
 Purposes, signed on 28 May 1976,
 
      Welcoming also the conclusion on 8 December 1987 of the historic Treaty
 between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist
 Republics on the Elimination of Their Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range
 Missiles and the agreement in principle on and progress made towards an
 agreement for 50 per cent reductions in the strategic nuclear forces of the
 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the United States of America,
 
      Recalling the proposals by the leaders of the Six-Nation Initiative to
 promote an end to nuclear testing,
 
      Convinced that the most effective way to achieve the discontinuance of
 all nuclear tests by all States in all environments for all time is through
 the conclusion, at an early date, of a verifiable, comprehensive
 nuclear-test-ban treaty that will attract the adherence of all States,
 
      Reaffirming the particular responsibilities of the Conference on
 Disarmament in the negotiation of a comprehensive nuclear-test-ban treaty,
 
      1.   Reaffirms its conviction that a treaty to achieve the prohibition of
 all nuclear-test explosions by all States in all environments for all time is
 a matter of fundamental importance;
 
      2.   Urges, therefore, that the following actions be taken in order that
 a comprehensive nuclear-test-ban treaty may be concluded at an early date:
 
      (a)  The Conference on Disarmament should intensify its consideration of
 item 1 of its agenda entitled "Nuclear-test ban" and initiate substantive work
 on all aspects of a nuclear-test-ban treaty at the beginning of its 1989
 session;
 
      (b)  States members of the Conference on Disarmament, in particular the
 nuclear-weapon States, and all other States should co-operate in order to
 facilitate and promote such work;
 
      (c)  The nuclear-weapon States, especially those that possess the most
 important nuclear arsenals, should agree promptly to appropriate verifiable
 and militarily significant interim measures, with a view to realizing a
 comprehensive nuclear-test-ban treaty;
 
      (d)  Those nuclear-weapon States that have not yet done so should adhere
 to the Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space
 and under Water;
 
      3.   Also urges the Conference on Disarmament:
 
      (a)  To take immediate steps for the establishment, with the widest
 possible participation, of an international seismic monitoring network with a
 view to the further development of its potential to monitor and verify
 compliance with a comprehensive nuclear-test-ban treaty;
 
      (b)  In this context, to take into account the progress achieved by the
 Ad Hoc Group of Scientific Experts to Consider International Co-operative
 Measures to Detect and Identify Seismic Events, including work on the routine
 exchange and use of wave-form data, and other relevant initiatives or
 experiments by individual States and groups of States;
 
      (c)  To initiate detailed investigation of other measures to monitor and
 verify compliance with such a treaty, including an international network to
 monitor atmospheric radioactivity;
 
      4.   Calls upon the Conference on Disarmament to report to the General
 Assembly at its forty-fourth session on progress made;
 
      5.   Decides to include in the provisional agenda of its forty-fourth
 session the item entitled "Urgent need for a comprehensive nuclear-test-ban
 treaty".