The International Day Against Nuclear Tests: Commemorating the Closure of the Largest Nuclear Test Site

Since 1945, more than 2,000 nuclear weapons tests have been conducted worldwide, threatening the lives and health of people, poisoning the air we breathe and ravaging landscapes around the planet.

The International Day Against Nuclear Tests was approved by the United Nations (AND) in December 2009 introduced and commemorates the Closure of the largest nuclear test site in Kazakhstan in 1991. Its purpose is to raise awareness of the need to fight for progress on nuclear disarmament.

How the date came about

The International Day Against Nuclear Tests was unanimously adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 2, 2009 and signed in Resolution 64/35. The text was initiated by Kazakhstan, along with a large number of participating countries, and aimed to mark the day of the closure of the nuclear test site in Semipalatinsk, in the north-east of the country.

The date was first observed in 2010 and makes it clear every year how threatening nuclear tests are. The resolution calls Awareness raising and education “about the effects of nuclear weapon test explosions or other nuclear explosions and the need to stop them as one of the means of achieving the end of a worldwide nuclear-weapon-free” on.

Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan, popularly known as “The Polygon”, was the largest nuclear test site in history used by the Soviet Union and had numerous consequences for the population.

However, the most important tool for eliminating nuclear tests is the Total Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1996, it has been signed by 186 countries and ratified by 178 to date. However, the agreement not yet come into force, as it is still approved by 44 countries with special nuclear technology needs to be confirmed as China, United States and North Korea.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a letter: “A legally binding nuclear test ban is a fundamental step in our quest for a nuclear weapons-free world. The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, while not yet in force, is strong evidence of humanity’s will to remove the shadow of nuclear annihilation from our world once and for all.”

Since this date was first commemorated (2010), there have been a number of discussions and initiatives relevant to the objectives of the treaty, as well as conferences that elaborate and advance those objectives. This year, 2023the first meeting of the Preparatory Committee for the 11th NPT Review Conference (2026) was held in Wien instead of.

The nuclear tests in Semipalatinsk

Semipalatinskalso known as “Polygon“, With an area of ​​18,000 square kilometers, it was the largest nuclear test site in history. It was used by the Soviet Union (USSR) during the Cold War, more specifically between 1949 and 1989. In the four decades there have been nearly 500 atomic bombs detonated. Kazakh Ambassador to the UN Magzhan Ilyassov said the cumulative impact of the blasts was “1,200 times greater” than that Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II was dropped in Japan.

Guterres recalled that the nuclear tests caused great human suffering and environmental damage have caused. “They have had terrible consequences for the health of the people living in the affected areas. Many have been displaced from their lands (…) Pristine environments and ecosystems have been destroyed and will take decades, if not centuries, to heal are,” he said. Around 1.5 million people still suffer from genetic diseases, cancer and leukemia linked to nuclear testing.

In the late 1980s, the Nevada-Semipalatinsk anti-nuclear movement emerged, calling for an end to testing in the region. In response, the USSR canceled some of the tests planned for 1990. Kazakhstan declared independence in December 1990 and voluntarily renounced the nuclear arsenal inherited after the collapse of the USSR.