Nuclear-weapon-free Zone - Geography

Geography

The Antarctic, Latin American, and South Pacific zones are defined by lines of latitude and longitude, except for the northwestern boundary of the South Pacific zone which follows the limit of Australian territorial waters, and these three zones form a contiguous area, though treaty provisions do not apply to international waters within that area. In contrast, the Southeast Asian zone is defined as the territories of its members including their Exclusive Economic Zones, and the African zone is also defined as the countries and territories considered part of Africa by the OAU (now the African Union) which include islands close to Africa and Madagascar. An AU member, Mauritius, claims the British Indian Ocean Territory where Diego Garcia is currently a US military base.

Because few prevailing winds cross the Equator, effects of nuclear explosions in the Northern Hemisphere might send less fallout to the Southern Hemisphere. (This fact was used in the book and film On the Beach, although there the Southern Hemisphere eventually succumbs as well.)

The five southern NWFZs cover Southern Hemisphere lands except East Timor which is in the process of joining ASEAN, and islands north of the 60th parallel south, east of the 20th meridian west, and west of the 115th meridian east, but outside of African, Australian or Indonesian territorial waters, which combined have less than 8000 km² of land area, mostly in Kerguelen:

• South Atlantic:
  • St. Helena and its dependencies Ascension Island and Tristan da Cunha, a British overseas territory
  • Bouvet Island, a Norwegian territory
• Indian Ocean:
  • Kerguelen, Crozet, Saint Paul and Amsterdam Islands, some of the French Southern Territories
  • Chagos Islands (British Indian Ocean Territory) including Diego Garcia (disputed by Mauritius)
  • Addu, the southernmost of the atolls of the Maldives

In 1994 states of the South Atlantic Peace and Cooperation Zone issued a "Declaration on the Denuclearization of the South Atlantic" which the U.N. General Assembly endorsed but the U.S., U.K., and France still opposed.

The Latin American, African, South Pacific and Southeast Asian zones also cover most land in the tropics, but not some Northern Hemisphere areas south of the Tropic of Cancer. Most tropical land outside of NWFZs is in India and the Arabian Peninsula.

Little of the land area covered by the five southern Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones extends north of the Tropic of Cancer: only northern Mexico, northern Bahamas, northern Myanmar, and North Africa. However, the Central Asian and Mongolian zones are entirely in the North Temperate Zone.