Overview of the CTBT
International Positions and Negotiations
A ban on nuclear testing is the oldest item on the arms controlagenda. Efforts to curtail tests have been made since the 1940s.In the 1950s, the United States and Soviet Union conducted hundredsof hydrogen bomb tests. The radioactive fallout from these testsspurred worldwide protest.These pressures, plus a desire to reduce U.S.-Soviet confrontationafter the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, led to the Limited TestBan Treaty of 1963, which banned nuclear explosions in the atmosphere,in space, and under water. The Threshold Test Ban Treaty, signedin 1974, banned underground nuclear weapons tests having an explosiveforce of more than 150 kilotons, the equivalent of…
