M93 18 August 1995

VANUATU TO JOIN THE SOUTH PACIFIC NUCLEAR FREE ZONE TREATY

I warmiy 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 .

