U.N. Approves Treaty Banning Nuclear Testing

By a 158-3 vote, U.N. member states approved a treaty Tuesday that sets the stage for eliminating the ominous mushroom clouds of Cold War nuclear testing through a worldwide ban on nuclear blasts.

Adoption of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty by the U.N. General Assembly opens the way for the world’s countries to sign the pact decreeing what U.S. Ambassador Madeleine K. Albright called “a total ban on nuclear explosions of any size in any place at any time.”

For the immediate future, however, the treaty will have only limited applicability because India and Pakistan, both among the 44 actual or potential nuclear powers whose assent is necessary for the pact to come into force, announced they will not sign. As long as they withhold their approval, the treaty will not have the authority of universally applicable international law.

But as a practical matter, the five principal nuclear powers - the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France - support the treaty. They are expected to be in the forefront of a vast number of countries lining up to sign.

The treaty will be open for signing on Sept. 24. And U.S. officials said Tuesday night that President Clinton will go to the United Nations on that date to sign on behalf of the United States and invite other governments to join him in a mass signing ceremony.

“With this treaty, we are on the verge of realizing a decades-old dream that no nuclear weapons will be detonated anywhere on the face of the Earth,” Clinton said while campaigning in Kansas City, Mo.