SOUTH PACIFIC NUCLEAR-FREE ZONE
Treaty of Rarotonga

As NFZs (Nuclear-Free Zone) that preponderated despite the Cold War together with the Treaty of Tlatelolco, we have mentioned the Rarotonga Treaty creating a similar zone in the South Pacific. In 1983, 16 years after the Treaty of Tlatelolco was opened for signature, Australia proposed to establish a nuclear weapon free zone in the South Pacific. As a result of the negotiations between the concerned States, Australia, the Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, New Zealand, Nieu, Papua New Guinea, the Salomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Western Samoa, all of them members of the South Pacific Forum, signed a treaty on August 6, 1985, in the city of Rarotonga, capital of the Cook Islands, establishing the proposed zone. Afterwards the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the Federal State of Micronesia became eligible States for signing this Treaty. This Treaty annexed 2 additional protocols to its text, which have been intended, as in the case of Tlatelolco, to be signed by the nuclear States and by the States possessing de jure or de facto territories under their responsibility in the Treaty application zone. The third additional protocol commits the nuclear States not to carry out nuclear tests within the application zone. This regulation was innovatory in regard to the Treaty of Tlatelolco.