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In this TeenVogue op-ed, CTBTO GEM member Susan le Jeune d’Allegeershecque, British High Commissioner to Canada, and CTBTO Youth Group (CYG) member Sarah Bidgood, Senior Research Associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies explain how the CTBTO “provides a way for the next generation to make their voices heard” through the CYG, founded in 2016. With now more than 300 members, the CYG is involved in “an impressive spread of activities from research and analysis to grassroots advocacy”. Youth Group members’ reach through social media “demonstrates how much the treaty resonates with their generation once its benefits are understood”, highlighting the importance of establishing links between the Treaty and the youth of today. It is this link that has allowed “a new generation of activists to challenge the status quo by asking tough questions that move the nuclear debate forward”. Read the complete article on TeenVogue.
Superstock/Getty Images – Taken from the original TeenVogue article
The 2017 Nature’s 10 issue on the the year’s most important contributors to science and technology include CTBTO Executive Secretary Lassina Zerbo!
Lassina Zerbo’s phone rang less than 30 minutes after North Korea conducted its sixth nuclear test, on Sunday 3 September. It was just before 6 a.m. in Vienna, and seismic data suggested that this was by far the most powerful bomb the country had ever detonated, shaking the Earth with a force close to that of a 6.1-magnitude earthquake. “It was frightening,” says Zerbo, who heads the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), which monitors nuclear tests worldwide. Before long, he had finished calls with the Japanese and South Korean ambassadors to Austria and was preparing for an onslaught of media requests to help make sense of this latest nuclear provocation.
It has been a challenging year for Zerbo and other advocates of non-proliferation. North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, and US President Donald Trump have traded increasingly aggressive threats, and uncertainty has grown about the United States’ commitment to its allies.
Although North Korea is the only nation to have conducted a nuclear test in nearly 20 years and most countries continue to favour non-proliferation, the ground seems to be shifting. In April, Zerbo was taken aback to hear university students in Nagasaki, Japan — a city that has been vocal in denouncing nuclear weapons in the wake of the US bombings during the Second World War — question their country’s anti-nuclear stance. “The younger generations ask: ‘Why shouldn’t we ourselves be in the position where we have a deterrent?’” he says.
Born in Burkina Faso in 1963, Zerbo moved to France to earn a doctorate in geophysics and worked in the minerals industry before joining the CTBTO in 2004.
One of his first initiatives there was to set up a system to share informationcollected by the organization’s monitoring stations with the broader scientific community. (It turns out that the troves of data gathered by the hydroacoustic, infrasound, seismic and radionuclide sensors are useful for many other purposes, including tsunami detection and whale-migration tracking.)
Zerbo became executive secretary of the CTBTO in 2013 and now spends much of his time travelling the world working towards the completion of the organization’s network of monitoring stations. More importantly, he advocates for the ratification of the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, which created the CTBTO but has never been put into force. Key hold-outs include China and the United States. Siegfried Hecker, a nuclear-policy expert at Stanford University in California, calls Zerbo a “tireless and effective promoter” of the ban.
Despite the challenges, Zerbo says there is nothing as gratifying as working at the nexus of science and diplomacy. He often recommends young researchers consider a similar move: “Science has to be married with policy for the world to be a better place.”
Published by Xinhua on 17 December 2017, the article features the interview with CTBTO Executive Secretary Lassina Zerbo, where he commends China’s commitment towards global non-proliferation efforts, as evidenced by the certification of five International Monitoring System stations in the past 12 months.
VIENNA, Dec. 16 (Xinhua) — China’s recent contribution to nuclear nonproliferation is in line with its increasing global role, a senior official said.
Lassina Zerbo, executive secretary of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), told Xinhua that China’s construction of nuclear activity monitoring stations was evidence of its commitment to the global cause of nonproliferation.
These stations are part of the global system under the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) to monitor potential nuclear tests around the world. China established its first CTBTO-certified station in December 2016, which Zerbo called a “great milestone.” A fifth station is planned to be technically certified this week.
Having five monitoring stations certified within one year is “excellent work”, Zerbo said.
The development indicates China’s larger influence on nonproliferation, which is in accordance with an increasing global leadership role, he added.
The CTBTO official said China’s status as a developing country should be noted when examining the progress it has made. How China has dealt with affairs in the United Nations fits well into the concept of partnership in the developing world, he said.
With a population of over 1 billion in a world of some 7 billion, Zerbo called China’s emergence from poverty by mastering advanced technologies an industrial miracle against all odds.
The Burkina Faso national, recalling his trip to the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, said he was impressed by the transformation of a fishing village into a booming city with vast infrastructure and a dynamic economy.
“I wish many of our African countries could be on that path,” he said.
The CTBTO is tasked with building up the CTBT verification regime so that it is fully operational when the Treaty enters into force, and with promoting signatures and ratifications of the Treaty.
