ABSTRACT
In May 1961, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower stated that failure to achieve a nuclear test ban ‘would have to be classed as the greatest disappointment of any administration – of any decade – of any time and of any party’.1 The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is one of the most famous of all nuclear disarmament treaties. And it has the longest history, longer than the NPT. The idea originated in the mid-1950s, when concern about the fallout from nuclear tests was rising. Still, however, such a treaty has not entered into force.
