The South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone TreatySouth Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty • June 18th, 2020
Contract Type FiledJune 18th, 2020On 6 August 1985 the sixteenth South Pacific Forum, the annual meeting of Heads of Government of the thirteen independent or self-governing countries of the South Pacific,1 agreed to adopt and open for signature the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty. The date was significant: exactly forty years had passed since the destruction of Hiroshima by an atomic bomb. The event was significant for the Forum, representing the first formal “security” commitment undertaken by all its members. It was significant, too, on a wider scale, as the first international arms control agreement since the ill-fated Salt II accords of 1979.