Olamide Samuel explains how the South Pacific zone came about and the challenges it faces now.

The Treaty of Rarotonga emerged from a region where nuclear harm is a distinct historical trauma, but it's also a contemporary reality.

The Pacific had experienced decades of nuclear testing by outside powers, along with radioactive contamination, displacement, public health consequences, and environmental damage that continues to shape regional politics today.

The treaty opened for signature at Rarotonga, which is in the Cook Islands, on the 6th of August 1985, and it entered into force the next year on the 11th of December 1986 after the eighth country submitted its instrument of ratification.

It was actually the second nuclear weapons-free zone to enter into force in a populated region after the Treaty of Tlatelolco in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Now, the provisions of Rarotonga reflects the unique history of the South Pacific, because beyond prohibiting the manufacture, acquisition, control, stationing, and testing of nuclear explosive devices in the region, the treaty also contains a very strong environmental dimension, including a prohibition on dumping radioactive waste at sea within the zone.

And that environmental concern is actually part and parcel of the security logic of the Pacific zone because their experience showed that nuclear decisions made elsewhere could produce long-lasting consequences for Pacific communities.

future.The Treaty of Pelindaba opened for signature in 1996, but the idea for an African zone is much older.