Tuvalu - International cooperation

Tuvalu became a member of the Comonwealth of Nations on 1 September 2000, and the 189th member of the UN on 5 September 2000. Tuvalu cooperates with the South Pacific Forum, which it hosted in 1982. The country participates in the Asian Development Bank, belongs to the ITU, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UPU, WHO, and has associate or special status at the IFRCS and Intelsat. It is a member of ESCAP, an applicant to the WTO, and a signatory of the Law of the Sea. In 1979, Tuvalu signed a treaty of friendship with the United States, which in 1983 formally dropped its prior claim to four of the nine islands. Tuvalu opposes French nuclear testing in the South Pacific and signed the 1985 Rarotonga Agreement declaring the region a nuclear-weapons-free zone.