Senate CTB Treaty Rejection: Prudent Statesmanship or Partisan Politics

摘要

On August 11, 1995, President Clinton issued a statement from the White House announcing his decision to seek a zero-yield Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) designed to outlaw all nuclear weapon test explosions upon the treaty's entry into force. He called this goal 'one of my Administration's highest priorities' and indicated that he was prepared 'to lead the world' in a sustained effort to achieve the test ban.' Four years and two months later, in the wake of the Senate's stunning rejection of the CTBT, an editorial in The Economist observed: 'The Senate's defeat of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is a humiliation for the Clinton administration, a pyrrhic victory for the Senate and a disaster for America's foreign-policy making process.' What had gone wrong for the Clinton administration as this high priority issue slowly worked its way through the treaty ratification process. From the perspective of those in the executive branch, and much of the media, the rejection of the treaty was a manifestation of 'militant isolationism' and 'political partisanship' by opponents of the president. Certainly, the fact that Senator Helms 'alluded to Monica Lewinsky on the Senate floor in his closing remarks against the test ban' seems to support the case that partisan politics served as the prime motivator for Senate Republicans. In reality, the vote to reject the treaty was an act of prudent statesmanship on the part of 51 Senators exercising their constitutional powers of 'advice and consent' in the treaty ratification process. As observed by Senator Kyl in the aftermath of the vote: 'What today's treaty rejection does say...is that our constitutional democracy, with its shared powers and checks and balances, is alive and well.'.