International Day against Nuclear Tests: What is its significance?

The International Day against Nuclear Tests commemorates the closure of the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test site in Kazakhstan on 29 August 1991.The Day is meant to galvanize the United Nations, member states, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, academic institutions, youth networks, and the media to inform, educate and advocate the necessity of ending nuclear weapon tests as a valuable step towards achieving a safer world.

At the 64th session of the United Nations General Assembly on December 2, 2009, the unanimous adoption of resolution 64/35 declared August 29 as the International Day Against Nuclear Tests.

The crux of the resolution was that “every effort should be made to end nuclear tests in order to avert devastating and harmful effects on the lives and health of people” and that “the end of nuclear tests is one of the key means of achieving the goal of a nuclear-weapon-free world.”


The initiation for this day was by the Republic of Kazakhstan, selecting August 29 as the date of the observance to align with the shutdown of the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test site on the same date in 1991.

The inaugural observance of the International Day Against Nuclear Tests was in 2010. Every year, massive efforts go into arranging activities across the world; including conferences, symposia, competitions, publications, media broadcasts, lectures, and more. Many sponsors, government-level agencies, and civil society organizations have aided the cause and campaigned for the complete ban on nuclear testing.

The first nuclear test, called Trinity, was conducted by the United States Army in a desert site in New Mexico, on July 16, 1945. The test gave the US confidence to drop atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. An estimated 200,000 casualties occurred while survivors suffered from radiation-induced cancers.

A total of 2000 nuclear test explosions were conducted between 1945 and 1996.