Open Skies Treaty

Open Skies Treaty

Treaty on Open Skies
States that signed and ratified the treaty   States that have signed, but not ratified
Signed	24 March 1992 (also start of provisional application)
Location	Helsinki
Effective	1 January 2002
Condition	20 ratifications
Ratifiers	34
Depositary	Governments of Canada and Hungary
Languages	English, French, German, Italian, Russian and Spanish

The Treaty on Open Skies entered into force on January 1, 2002, and currently has 34 party states. It establishes a program of unarmed aerial surveillance flights over the entire territory of its participants. The treaty is designed to enhance mutual understanding and confidence by giving all participants, regardless of size, a direct role in gathering information about military forces and activities of concern to them. Open Skies is one of the most wide-ranging international efforts to date promoting openness and transparency of military forces and activities. The concept of "mutual aerial observation" was initially proposed to Soviet Premier Nikolai Bulganin at the Geneva Conference of 1955 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower; however, the Soviets promptly rejected the concept and it lay dormant for several years. The treaty was eventually signed as an initiative of US president (and former Director of Central Intelligence) George H. W. Bush in 1989. Negotiated by the then-members of NATO and the Warsaw Pact, the agreement was signed in Helsinki, Finland, on March 24, 1992.

This treaty is not related to civil-aviation open skies agreements.

The 34 state parties to the Open Skies Treaty are: Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark (including Greenland), Estonia, Finland, France, the Republic of Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, the Russian Federation, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Kyrgyzstan has signed the treaty but has not yet ratified it. Canada and Hungary are the Depositories of the treaty in recognition of their special contributions to the Open Skies process. The "Depository" countries maintain treaty documents and provide administrative support.