By John Gee, Acting Director-General of the Technical Secretariat of the OPCW, OPCW - Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons
SubscribeFrom its headquarters in The Hague, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons(OPCW) co-ordinates the implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).
This ambitious treaty builds upon the 1925 Geneva protocol's prohibition of the use of chemical weapons in war and is a disarmament and non-proliferation treaty without precedent in the modern world. The fact that the Chemical Weapons Convention entered into force on 29 April 1997, and has been successfully implemented for more than five years, is a remarkable achievement.
Never before has humankind embarked on such an ambitious undertaking in the field of disarmament - aiming not just at reductions, restrictions, confidence-building, and non-proliferation, but at the elimination of an entire category of weapons of mass destruction. The disarmament provisions require States Parties to destroy all existing stockpiles of chemical weapons and their means of production. The non-proliferation function requires the OPCW to monitor closely the international chemical industry, seeking to reveal any attempts to use industry facilities for activities prohibited under the convention.
A further function of the OPCW is the provision of material and technical assistance to CWC States Parties in the event that they are threatened or attacked with chemical weapons. In such an event, the OPCW would use its inspectors and laboratory facilities to confirm that an attack had taken place and then co-ordinate assistance provided by States Parties to the victim of that attack. Material assistance may include, but is not limited to, items such as detection and alarm systems, protective equipment, decontamination equipment, medical antidotes and treatments.
One of the greatest challenges facing the OPCW and the CWC at this time is addressing the possibility that non-state actors might seek to produce chemical warfare agents for terrorist uses. Although the Convention’s primary focus is the activity of States Parties, the OPCW is well placed to contribute to combating this threat. Its system of industry verification, designed to reassure States Parties about each others compliance with the provisions of the CWC, can be used to ensure that prohibited activity by non-state-actors which must use the same chemicals and similar facilities, and operate on the territory of a State Party, could be detected. Furthermore in the event of a terrorist attack the unique expertise at the disposal of the OPCW will be of great assistance to the victims of this kind of attack.
Since the entry into force of the Convention in April 1997 the OPCW has worked hard, in co-operation with its member states to increase the geographic reach of the Convention and carry out its mandate. The degree of global trust and confidence in the Chemical Weapons Convention and in the OPCW is best illustrated by the rapid and continuing increase in its membership. The OPCW has grown, from 87 States Parties in April 1997, to 145 States Parties today with a further 29 states as signatories.
Although some difficulties have been encountered in the last few years the OPCW has nevertheless achieved a great deal. Sixty-one chemical weapons production facilities declared to the Organisation by 11 States Parties have been inactivated and are subject to a verification regime of unprecedented stringency. More than one half of these facilities have been either destroyed or converted for peaceful purposes. About ten percent of the world’s declared stockpile of 70 thousand tonnes of chemical agents and 25 percent of the 8.4 million chemical munitions declared by four States Parties have also been destroyed.
Over 1,200 inspections have been conducted in 51 States Parties at 527 sites since April 1997. This figure includes 450 inspections at civilian chemical plants, to ensure that they engage only in non-chemical weapons-related activities. This has been carried out by an organisation with a little more than 500 staff from 70 countries, including 180 inspectors, which operates on a rather modest annual budget of only sixty-two million EUR.
Since its establishment in 1997, the OPCW has emerged as a new type of global, treaty based, international organisation with responsibilities for disarmament and non-proliferation, possessing the impartial mechanisms required for verifying compliance with the provisions of the Chemical Weapons Convention and redressing cases of non-compliance should they occur.
