18 August 1995

VANUATU TO JOIN THE SOUTH PACIFIC NUCLEAR FREE ZONE TREATY

I warmly welcome the Vanuatu Government's announced intention to sign and ratify the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone (SPNFZ) Treaty. The announcement was made in a declaration on denuclearisation in the South Pacific, issued by the leaders of the Melanesian Spearhead Group in Lakatoro on Malekula Island, Vanuatu, on 14 August. The declaration condemned France's decision to resume nuclear testing in the South Pacific.

I applaud Vanuatu's decision to sign and ratify the SPNFZ Treaty as a further expression of the overwhelming opposition of the countries of the South Pacific to the resumption of French nuclear testing. Vanuatu's decision is particularly timely in the lead up to the South Pacific Forum meeting to be held in Madang from 13 to 15 September. It will reinforce the Forum's continuing efforts to leave France in no doubt as to the strength of the regional opposition to the decision to resume nuclear testing and the determination of all Forum members to achieve a South Pacific free of nuclear weapons and nuclear testing.

Vanuatu will be the twelfth member of the Forum to join the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone.

Australia and other members of the South Pacific Forum are continuing their efforts to persuade France, the United States and the United Kingdom to sign and ratify the Treaty's Protocols. Russia and China have signed and ratified the relevant Protocols.

The South Pacific Forum mission to Paris on 19 June called on the French Government to give a firm and unequivocal commitment to sign and ratify the SPNFZ Protocols. France's reluctance to do so is in sharp contrast to its signature and ratification of the equivalent Protocols of the Treaty of Tlatelolco which established the Latin American nuclear weapon free zone.

Background

The SPNFZ Treaty, otherwise known as the Treaty of Rarotonga, was adopted and opened for signature by the South Pacific Forum in August 1985. The Treaty entered into force on 11 December 1986. Under its terms the parties pledge not to possess or acquire nuclear explosive devices; to prevent the stationing in their territory of any nuclear explosive device; to apply full-scope International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards to all peaceful nuclear activities in their territory; and not to dump, and to work to prevent the dumping of radioactive waste, at sea in the Zone. The Treaty does not interfere with the sovereign right of each party to decide for itself whether to allow visits by foreign ships and aircraft to its ports and airfields. It also explicitly upholds the principles of freedom of navigation on the high seas and territorial waters.

There are three Protocols to the SPNFZ Treaty. Under Protocol 1, the three nuclear weapon states with territories within the Zone - France, the United Kingdom and the United States - would apply key provisions of the Treaty - such as the ban on stationing nuclear weapons - to their Pacific territories within the Zone. Under Protocol 2 nuclear weapon states undertake not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against parties to the Treaty or any territory within the zone of a state which has become a party to Protocol 1. Under Protocol 3, nuclear weapon states undertake not to test any nuclear explosive devices within the zone.

Russia and China have signed and ratified Protocols 2 and 3. (They are not eligible to sign Protocol 1.) France, the United Kingdom and the United States have signed none of the Protocols.

South Pacific Forum members party to the treaty are: Australia, the Cook Island, Fiji, Kiribata, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu.

The conviction that nuclear weapon free zones contribute to regional and global security was strongly reaffirmed by the international community - including all five nuclear weapon states - at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review and Extension Conference in New York in April-May 1995.