ABSTRACT
The Outer Space and Under Water (LTBT) confines nuclear tests by states parties to the Treaty to those conducted underground. The ABM Treaty prohibits the development and testing, as well as the deployment, of space-based ABM systems and components. When the US Executive determined in 1984–85 that the Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems (ABM Treaty) Treaty, as traditionally interpreted, blocked the development and testing in space of programs important to the early deployment of certain aspects of a Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) program, the United States had two permissible legal options under the ABM Treaty. Prior to the “reinterpretation” dispute, the most serious disagreement that had arisen under the ABM Treaty involved the large-phased-array radar under construction at Krasnoyarsk in Kazakhstan SSR. More broadly, there are no current negotiations underway limiting anti-satellite (ASAT) and defensive anti-satellite (DSAT) systems.
