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South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty – USA now to join up

POLITICS: US MOVES TO SUPPORT NUCLEAR FREE ZONE TREATY, Islands Business, Nic Maclellan, 11 June 2010, In a major policy change, the US government has announced it will move to support the Rarotonga Treaty for a South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone (SPNFZ)—25 years after the treaty was first signed by Pacific nations.

The change in policy was announced by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the May 2010 Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).Clinton stated the Obama administration “will seek US Senate advice and consent to ratification of several Protocols to the Africa Nuclear Weapon Free Zone Treaty (Treaty of Pelindaba) and the South Pacific Nuclear Weapon Free Zone Treaty (Treaty of Rarotonga).”………….

After a decade of campaigning by Pacific churches and the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) movement, Pacific governments moved to create a nuclear free zone in the mid-1980s.
At the height of the nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union, the SPNFZ Treaty was opened for signature on Hiroshima Day, 6 August 1985, at the Forum meeting in Rarotonga.
Under this Rarotonga Treaty, countries in the zone commit never to develop nuclear weapons (although only Australia has ever begun preparations to build a nuclear bomb, in the early 1960s).
The treaty also has three protocols, where nuclear states with territories in the zone (France, United Kingdom and United States) agree to apply the treaty to their territories. By accepting the protocols, the nuclear powers also undertake not to use or threaten to use any nuclear device against countries in the zone and undertake not to test nuclear devices in the zone.

Islands Business – POLITICS: US MOVES TO SUPPORT NUCLEAR FREE ZONE TREATY

June 11, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | OCEANIA, weapons and war | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear weapons