The movement for international control of nuclear weapons began in 1945, with a call from Canada and the United Kingdom for a conference on the subject.

The Castle Bravo test of 1 March 1954, in particular, attracted significant attention as the detonation resulted in fallout that spread over inhabited areas and sickened a group of Japanese fishermen.

On the Western side, there were concerns that the Soviet Union would be able to circumvent any test ban and secretly leap ahead in the nuclear arms race.

The PTBT, joined by 123 states following the original three parties, banned detonations for military and civilian purposes underwater, in the atmosphere, and outer space.

To verify compliance, the PNET requires that states rely on national technical means of verification, share information on explosions, and grant on-site access to counterparties.

These three nuclear powers made notable progress in the late 1970s, agreeing to terms on a ban on all testing, including a temporary prohibition on PNEs, but continued disagreements over the compliance mechanisms led to an end to negotiations ahead of Ronald Reagan's inauguration as president in 1981.

[43] Given the political situation prevailing in the subsequent decades, little progress was made in nuclear disarmament until the end of the Cold War in 1991.

Parties to the PTBT held an amendment conference that year to discuss a proposal to convert the Treaty into an instrument banning all nuclear-weapon tests.

[45] On 10 September 1996, the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) was adopted by a large majority, exceeding two-thirds of the General Assembly's Membership.

[55] The best measurement of hydroacoustic waves has been found to be at a depth of 1000 m. Infrasound monitoring relies on changes in atmospheric pressure caused by a possible nuclear explosion, with 41 stations certified as of August 2019.

[59] The Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), an international organization headquartered in Vienna, Austria, was created to build the verification framework, including establishment and provisional operation of the network of monitoring stations, the creation of an international data centre (IDC), and development of the on-site Inspection capability.

[60] The CTBTO is responsible for collecting information from the IMS and distribute the analyzed and raw data to member states to judge whether or not a nuclear explosion occurred through the IDC.

John Nuckolls, the Livermore scientist credited as one of the pioneers of the field of ICF, himself described the fusion of less than one milligram of deuterium-tritium as an "explosion".

The American National Ignition Facility, the French Laser Mégajoule, and the Russian ISKRA-5, all have a dual-use, supporting scientific research for both peaceful purposes, and for the continual verification and maintenance of their countries' thermonuclear weapon stockpile.

In the 1990s, the Treaty, and especially the "zero-yield" non-criticality standard for weapons-related fission testing, was the impetus for the American Stockpile Stewardship and Management Program.

In 1999 the US Department of Energy, in response to concern from Senator Tom Harkin, stated “NIF experiments are not considered nuclear explosions” and that “the large size of the facilities required to achieve inertial confinement fusion rules out weaponization”.

[64] In 1992, Russian scientists used high-explosive implosions to trigger fusion in less than a nanogram of deuterium-tritium gas, releasing 1014 neutrons and the energy equivalent of 60 milligrams of TNT.

[66] Three countries have tested nuclear weapons since the CTBT opened for signature in 1996, India, Pakistan, and North Korea, all non-signatories.

All six North Korean tests were picked up by the International Monitoring System set up by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization Preparatory Commission.

A North Korean test is believed to have taken place in January 2016, evidenced by an "artificial earthquake" measured as a magnitude 5.1 by the U.S. Geological Survey.