Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO)

About Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO):

• It is an international organization based in Vienna, Austria, established to implement the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), which aims to ban all nuclear explosions worldwide.
• CTBT is a multilateral treaty opened for signature in 1996 by which states agree to ban all nuclear explosions in all environments, for military or civilian purposes. 
• The treaty envisages the mechanisms that control such prohibition, including distant monitoring and data collection.
• It was signed by 183 states and ratified by 164 but has not entered into force as eight specific states among 44 (so-called Annex-2 states whose signatures are required for the Treaty to enter into force, namely the US, China, Iran, Egypt, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea) have not ratified the treaty yet. 
• In order to verify compliance with its provisions, the treaty establishes a global network of monitoring facilities and allows for on-site inspections of suspicious events.

Q1: What is a Nuclear Weapon?

A nuclear weapon is a type of explosive device that derives its destructive power from nuclear reactions, either fission (splitting atomic nuclei) or a combination of fission and fusion (combining atomic nuclei). These reactions release massive amounts of energy in the form of an explosion, along with radiation and heat, making nuclear weapons the most powerful weapons known.

News: ‘Global N-monitoring system transparent’