International Day against Nuclear Tests: It’s time to end the practice for once and for all

In 2009, the UN General Assembly proclaimed today the International Day against Nuclear Tests. This date recalls the official closing of the Semipalatinsk testing site in today’s Kazakhstan in 1991. That one site alone has seen at least 456 nuclear test explosions.

Taking to X, UN Director-General Guterres highlighted that: “Nuclear tests left a legacy of destruction and created long-term health problems for people. Recent calls for the resumption of nuclear testing demonstrate that the lessons of the past are being forgotten …”

Radioactivity from nuclear tests spread deep into environment

In the period from 1954 to 1984, the global community faced at least one nuclear test every 7 days. Most of the explosions for exceeded the bombing of Hiroshima in Japan. These tests happened in the air, on and under the ground and in the sea.

Radioactivity from these test explosions spread across the planet deep into the environment. It can still be traced and measured in the current times, in the Coral of the Great Barrier Reef, in elephant tusks and even in the deepest ocean trenches, according to the UN.

Simultaneously, nuclear arms stockpiles have increased exponentially. By the early 1980s, the global community collectively had some 60,000 nuclear arms, most far stronger than the bombs used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

No country can conduct a test in secret – thanks to CTBT

It took several decades and hundreds of nuclear test explosions before the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) came into existence in 1996. This is one of the landmark treaties globally and has made quite a lot of difference.

In the 28 years since 1996, there have been lesser than a dozen of nuclear tests on the planet. The CTBT depends on over 300 scientific monitoring facilities that can quickly detect a nuclear test and pinpoint its location. No country can conduct a test in secret.