The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) -- which entered into force on April 29, 1997, shortly after ratification by the U.S. Senate -- is a global treaty that bans an entire class of weapons of mass destruction.

Under the CWC, each state party undertakes never, under any circumstances, to: develop, produce, otherwise acquire, stockpile or retain chemical weapons, or transfer, directly or indirectly, chemical weapons to anyone; use chemical weapons; engage in any military preparation to use chemical weapons; and assist, encourage or induce, in any way, anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a state party under the convention.

In addition, each state party undertakes to: destroy the chemical weapons it owns or possesses or that are located in any place under its jurisdiction or control; destroy all chemical weapons it abandoned on the territory of another state party; and destroy any chemical weapons production facilities it owns or possesses or that are located in any place under its jurisdiction or control.

The CWC helps to combat two of the gravest security challenges of the post-Cold War era -- the spread of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism. The treaty goes further than any other arms control agreement to date in applying pressure to those outside. Nations who refuse to join the convention will find themselves unable to trade in many chemicals that can be used to make poison gas. By restricting the flow of chemicals that can be used to make poison gas, the CWC makes it more difficult and more costly for terrorists to acquire or use chemical weapons.

The first session of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, created in The Hague to implement the convention, was held in May 1997. The states parties to the CWC will review its progress in the sixth and eleventh years following entry into force.

COMPREHENSIVE TEST BAN TREATY

The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which bans all nuclear explosions, was negotiated in the Geneva Conference on Disarmament (CD) between January 1994 and August 1996 and opened for signature at the United Nations on September 24, 1996. President Clinton was the first to sign the treaty. As of July 8, 1997, 144 countries had signed, including all five nuclear-weapons states.

The CTBT will enter into force six months after the articles of ratification by 44 nations -- named in the treaty as having nuclear power or nuclear research reactors -- are deposited with the United Nations, but in no case earlier than two years after the treaty was opened for signature. To date, three of the 44 -- India, Pakistan and North Korean -- have not signed. So far, only four nations have deposited their instruments of ratification.

The treaty states that each signatory has the basic obligation "not to carry out any nuclear-weapons test explosion or any other nuclear explosion, and to prohibit and prevent any such nuclear explosion at any place under its jurisdiction or control." Each CTBT party also is obliged "to refrain from causing, encouraging, or in any way participating in the carrying out of any nuclear-weapons test explosion or any other nuclear explosion."

NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY

The United States and representatives of 60 other countries signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) at White House ceremonies on July 1, 1968; the treaty entered into force in 1970. Today, 185 countries have become parties to the NPT, making it the most widely adhered to arms control agreement in history.

The basic provisions of the treaty are designed to: prevent the spread of nuclear weapons; provide assurance, through international safeguards, that peaceful nuclear activities in states that do not possess nuclear weapons will not be diverted to making such weapons; promote the peaceful uses of nuclear energy; and express the determination of the parties that the treaty should lead to further progress in comprehensive arms control and nuclear disarmament measures.

At the fifth NPT Review and Extension Conference in 1995, states parties agreed to extend the treaty indefinitely and without conditions.

The United States is strongly committed to the NPT, to efforts that further strengthen the treaty, and to the broader international non-proliferation and arms control regime. The U.S. hopes that all NPT parties will work together to ensure that the 2000 NPT Review Conference further strengthens the NPT and reinforces global non-proliferation objectives.

FISSILE MATERIAL PRODUCTION CUTOFF TREATY

A Fissile Material Production Cutoff Treaty (FMCT) would prohibit the five nuclear weapons states (as well as all the other parties to the treaty) from producing fissile material for nuclear explosives or outside of international safeguards. President Clinton, in his September 24, 1996 address to the U.N. General Assembly, called on the Conference on Disarmament (CD) to take up "immediately" the challenge of negotiating such a treaty.

Clinton had first called for cutoff negotiations in his 1993 address to the U.N. General Assembly, and in December 1993 the UNGA passed a consensus resolution calling for the negotiation of a "nondiscriminatory, multilateral and internationally and effectively verifiable treaty banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices." In March 1995, the CD agreed by consensus to establish an Ad Hoc Committee with a mandate to negotiate a cutoff treaty based on the 1993 UNGA resolution.

However, despite widespread international support for an FMCT, formal negotiations on cutoff have not yet begun in the CD. The CD can only approve decisions by consensus, and since the summer of 1995, the insistence of a few states to link FMCT negotiations to other nuclear disarmament issues has brought progress on the cutoff treaty there to a standstill. The United States continues to seek the initiation of FMCT negotiations at the CD on terms consistent with the March 1995 mandate.

BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS CONVENTION

The 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) bans the development, production, stockpiling, or acquisition of bacteriological and toxin weapons. The United States -- which had unilaterally renounced biological and toxin weapons in 1969 -- submitted its instruments of ratification to the convention in March 1975. There are currently some 139 states parties to the convention with an additional 18 countries who have signed the pact but not ratified it.

Three BWC review conferences have been held since 1972. At the second review conference in 1986, the parties agreed on a set of confidence building measures (CBMs), including the exchange of data on biological research laboratories that meet very high safety standards, sharing information on all outbreaks of infectious diseases caused by toxins which deviate from the normal, encouraging publication of results of biological defense research in scientific journals, and promoting scientific contact.

At the third review conference in 1991 states parties strengthened the existing CBMs and added two new ones: declaration of past activities in offensive and/or defensive biological research and development programs, and declaration of vaccine production facilities. In addition, an Ad Hoc Group, open to all states parties, was created to consider appropriate measures to strengthen the convention and draft proposals in a legally binding instrument.

MISSILE TECHNOLOGY CONTROL REGIME

The cornerstone of U.S. missile non-proliferation policy is the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), which was formed in 1987 by the United States, Britain, Canada, Japan, then West Germany, Italy, and France. Today there are 28 member nations, and an increasing number of countries are unilaterally observing MTCR guidelines.

The purpose of the MTCR is to restrict the proliferation of missiles, unmanned air vehicles, and related technology for systems capable of carrying a 500 kilogram payload at least 300 kilometers, as well as systems designed to deliver weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The regime originally focused only on nuclear capable delivery systems, but in January 1993 the partners extended the guidelines to cover delivery systems for all WMD (nuclear, chemical, and biological.)

The MTCR is neither a treaty nor an international agreement but is a voluntary arrangement among countries which share a common interest in halting missile proliferation. The regime consists of common export policy applied to a common list of controlled items. Each member implements its commitments in the context of its own national export laws.

At their 11th Plenary Meeting in October 1996, MTCR partners built on earlier meetings on the regional aspects of missile proliferation and transshipment issues and agreed to continue to exchange views on the role of the regime in dealing with missile-related aspects of regional tensions. Partners also noted with satisfaction a continuing readiness by non-member countries to observe MTCR guidelines.

TREATY ON OPEN SKIES

The Open Skies Treaty -- signed in March 1992 in Helsinki, Finland -- promotes openness and transparency in military activities through reciprocal, unarmed observation overflights. Designed to enhance security confidence, the treaty gives each signatory the right to gather information about the military forces and activities of other signatories.

First proposed to the Soviet Union in 1955 by President Eisenhower, the concept lay dormant until proposed again by President Bush in 1989. Negotiations began that year between member states of NATO and the former Warsaw Pact. Today, the treaty has been signed by 27 countries.

The Open Skies Treaty will enter into force 60 days after ratification by 20 signatories, which must include all those subject to eight or more overflights each year after full entry into force. These are Belarus, Russia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and the United States. The treaty was ratified by the United States in November 1993. Of the above signatories, only Belarus, Russia and Ukraine have yet to ratify the treaty as of July 1997.

Signatories must submit their overflight requests for each coming year to all other signatories and to the Open Skies Consultative Commission, the organization established by the treaty to facilitate implementation. The treaty specifies the maximum number of overflights that each signatory must accept annually. After full implementation, the United States is obliged to accept 42 overflights per year.

ANTI-BALLISTIC MISSILE TREATY

The Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, signed in 1972 by the United States and the Soviet Union, prohibits the development, testing, or deployment of a sea-based, air-based, or mobile land-based national defense system against strategic ballistic missile attacks. In 1974, the two parties to the treaty agreed that each of them would be allowed one ABM deployment area. While Russia continues to maintain an ABM defense of Moscow, the United States deactivated its AMB site in 1976 after briefly using it to defend its intercontinental ballistic missile silo launcher area near Grand Forks, North Dakota.

To promote implementation of the treaty's provisions, the parties established the Standing Consultative Commission (SCC), which meets at least twice a year. A review of the treaty is conducted every five years. The fourth review of the ABM Treaty, held in 1993, reaffirmed the participants' commitment to the pact and advocated efforts to strengthen it.

At the Helsinki Summit in March 1997, Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin agreed that the six missile defense systems aimed at protecting soldiers on the ground, which are currently being developed by the United States as part of the theater missile defense program, are permitted by the treaty, though final technical details are still to be worked out.

Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the question of treaty succession arose. On May 14, 1997, the U.S. Senate unanimously approved an amendment to the 1990 Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty that included an unrelated, Republican-backed provision requiring the president to seek Senate approval, as a formal amendment to the ABM Treaty, for an agreement to extend the parties of the treaty to include Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakstan, the successor states of the former Soviet Union.

The administration maintains that it is premature to speculate on whether or when it might be necessary to negotiate changes to the ABM treaty should a future U.S. decision be taken to deploy a national missile defense.

BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE

The Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) program is designed to deal with the immediate potential threat, to U.S. allies and some U.S. forces deployed overseas, of short-range ballistic missiles, as well as the future proliferation threat of longer-range ballistic missiles to the continental United States.

The BMD program includes three components: Theater Missile Defenses (TMD), National Missile Defenses (NMD), and advanced ballistic missile defense technologies.

Theater defenses seek to defend U.S. and allied forces against short-range ballistic missiles and cruise missiles. There are two types of TMD: a set of lower-tier systems that will intercept missile targets at relatively low altitudes in the atmosphere, and upper-tier systems that will intercept outside the atmosphere and at greater ranges.

The NMD program involves developing and testing an integrated system to defend the continental United States against intercontinental ballistic missiles launched accidentally, or the intentional launch by rogue regimes of medium-range ballistic missiles. The fixed, land-based architecture of NMD would incorporate six elements: a ground-based interceptor; ground-based radar; upgraded early warning radars; forward-based X-band radars; a Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS); and a battle management, command, control and communications (BM/C3) system. The Department of Defense assumes that a fully operable NMD system could be ready for deployment as early as 2003, well ahead of intelligence community estimates of the requirement.

The third component of the BMD program will develop a robust technology base. This will enable the deployment of more advanced missile defense systems over time as the threat from ballistic missiles evolves. In preparation for the future, funds are being invested in Ballistic Missile Defense Support Technology Programs in a number of areas including advanced interceptor and sensor technologies and chemical lasers.