Contours of a debate

Even before the nuclear tests in the subcontinent, the debate on the Test Ban Treaty was a sober one in Pakistan. ACHINVANAIK reviews a book which brings together a collection of articles by Pakistani scholars highlighting the parameters of the debate.

THIS compilation of articles by different Pakistani scholars on the pros and cons of India and Pakistan signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) was written up between the May 1998 tests and December 2000 but published after Bush's presidential victory. Now that United States' pressure to sign the CTBT no longer exists, the book's value as a practical political intervention stands diminished but it remains useful in laying out the lines of that debate. Even before the tests the CTBT debate in Pakistan was always somewhat more sober than in India. After the tests the parameters of the debate changed. Now the main concern was a method by which relations with the U.S. in particular and the international community in general could be "normalised", i.e, how best to pose, and be accepted, as "responsible" nuclear powers. Is signing the CTBT a price that India and Pakistan should pay to achieve this?

Only one of the contributors, Tarik Jan ("CTBT: A Tool for American Domination") has come out categorically against a Pakistan signature and demands further testing and development even of thermonuclear bombs. The others such as Moonis Ahmar ("The Regional Dimension"), Arshi Saleem Hashmi ("Public Perceptions in Pakistan"), Kamal Matinuddin ("Need For a Consensual Approach"), Ghulam Umer ("Non-Proliferation in South Asia"), S. Mutahir Ahmed ("Role of Nuclear Nationalism and Religious Extremism"), are more sympathetic to the Treaty. Certain themes dominate: concern with the growth and influence of the religious Right in Pakistan; concern with India's intentions and therefore a linking up of Pakistani behaviour with Indian (if you sign we certainly should); a concern similar to India's with achieving a domestic consensus as the pre-condition for signing the CTBT. Pervez Hoodbhoy ("The CTBT and the Isolationist Agenda"), however, makes the most forceful case for signing before India does, insisting that Pakistan, unlike India, does not have to build a large nuclear force.

The first two contributions by Ahmer Bilal Soofi ("Legal and Conceptual Dimensions of the CTBT") and Shaista Tabassum ("The International Dimensions") confine themselves to technical exposition rather than to advocacy but are nonetheless useful, especially the first. Soofi does a fine job explaining the technicalities of the Treaty, correctly highlighting its path- breaking character as it goes further than any other multilateral Treaty in actually institutionalising a truly international monitoring system not subordinated to any country and overriding to some extent the claims of national sovereignty through an agreed universal consensus, something quite extraordinary and welcome indeed! If global nuclear disarmament is ever to become a reality, there have to be such international verification mechanisms and treaties which by consent override some of the claims of national sovereignty. The CTBT, if it ever came into force, would be the single most important precedent in this regard, besides being a major arms restraint measure in its own right.

The last three chapters are by Farhan Hanif Siddiqui ("Economic Dimension of the CTBT Controversy"), Naeem Ahmed ("Nuclear Explosions and Environmental Degradation"), and Nausheen Wasi ("A Chronological Survey of the CTBT: 1996-2000"). The first two writers basically use the CTBT issue as a peg for a more general discussion about the economic wastefulness and environmental damage caused by nuclearisation and their authors courageously come out as unequivocally opposed to nuclear weapons. The last is a useful listing of quotes made by key official spokespersons of various countries involved in the CTBT negotiations and reacting to the tests. But most of the focus is on statements from New Delhi, Islamabad and Washington which confirm that there was no serious US pressure on India and Pakistan between Sept. 1996 when the CTBT was passed in the U.N. and May 1998, but only (sanctions and all) after the tests.

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The CTBT Debate in Pakistan, edited by Moonis Ahmar, Har Anand Publications, New Delhi, Copyright: University of Karachi, 2001, p.200, Rs. 295.

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