Description
The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty’s (CTBT) opened for signature 25 years ago. The tested and proven verification regime, built on an over $1 billion investment in the International Monitoring System (IMS), is nearly complete. While the norm against nuclear testing is well established, with recent ratifications by Cuba and Comoros, the Treaty is not yet legally and universally binding. This seeming paradox requires both outside-the-box approaches to achieve the long-sought political breakthrough, as well as scientific and technological advances to sustain, improve and maintain the valuable contributions of the IMS.
To mark this important anniversary, the High-Level Opening Day of the Science and Technology Conference 2021 will:
• reaffirm the CTBT’s achievements, in obtaining acceptance of a worldwide norm against testing and the technical advances of its verification regime and technologies.
• outline the essential role of the CTBT in achieving a world free of nuclear weapons; and
• take a journey across time including the CTBT’s origin, its multi-disciplinary present, and concluding with a vision for the future through the lens of artificial intelligence, space travellers, scientists, and the upcoming generation of leaders.
Master of Ceremony: Ms. Sanam Shantyaei, Senior Journalist, France 24
High-level speakers in order of appearance:
• Mr. Lassina Zerbo, Executive Secretary, CTBTO
• Ms. Ghada Waly, Director-General of UNOV, delivering a message on behalf of the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres
• Mr. Peter Launsky-Tieffenthal, Secretary-General of the Federal Ministry of European and...
