On 4 November 2008, Mozambique ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) which bans all nuclear explosions on Earth, the CTBT Organization announced in a news release.
The Treaty has now been ratified by 146 nations, and signed by 180.
“To enter into force, however, the Treaty must be signed and ratified by the 44 States listed in Annex 2 to the Treaty,” the CTBT Organization explained. “These States participated in the negotiations of the Treaty in 1996 and possessed nuclear power or research reactors at the time. Thirty-five of these States have ratified the Treaty, including … France, Russian Federation and the United Kingdom. The nine remaining States are China, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Pakistan and the United States.”
Background on the Treaty from the Congressional Research Service is available here (pdf).
In recent months, we’ve seen much of these decades’ worth of progress erased. Contracts for evaluations of government programs were canceled, FFRDCs have been forced to lay off staff, and federal advisory committees have been disbanded.
This report outlines a framework relying on “Cooperative Technical Means” for effective arms control verification based on remote sensing, avoiding on-site inspections but maintaining a level of transparency that allows for immediate detection of changes in nuclear posture or a significant build-up above agreed limits.
At a recent workshop, we explored the nature of trust in specific government functions, the risk and implications of breaking trust in those systems, and how we’d known we were getting close to specific trust breaking points.
tudents in the 21st century need strong critical thinking skills like reasoning, questioning, and problem-solving, before they can meaningfully engage with more advanced domains like digital, data, or AI literacy.