Chemical Weapons Convention international agreements

What is the significance of the universality of the only international agreement to provide for the elimination of an entire category of weapons of mass destruction The members of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) already represent nearly 95 per cent of the earth s population and landmass and 98 per cent of global chemical industry. These are, of course, only raw statistics. But the issue of universality of instruments such as the Chemical Weapons Convention unearths a number of other, sometimes contentious, issues. 

The Geneva Protocol of 1925 prohibited the first use of chemicals for wartime use. Since 1928, an international treaty has banned the use of chemical weapons but not their development and production. A multilateral treaty, the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), would require the destruction of chemical weapons and the means to produce them. The United States signed the convention in 1993 but has not ratified it as of July 1996. Earlier, the United States signed bilateral agreements with Russia aimed at destroying both countries chemical weapon stockpiles. 

Krutzsch W (2014a) Article I general obligations. In Krutzsch W, Myjer E, Trapp R (eds) The Chemical Weapons Convention—a commentary. Oxford University Press, Oxford, p 61 Krutzsch W (2014b) Preamble. In Krutzsch W, Myjer E, Trapp R (eds) The Chemicril Weapons Convention—a commentary. Oxford University Press, Oxford, p 51 Krutzsch W (2014c) Article Xlll relation to other international agreements. In Krutzsch W, Myjer E, Trapp R (eds) The Chemical Weapons Convention—a commentary. Oxford University Press, Oxford, p 383... 

Increased international communications nsing e-mail and the Internet, air travel, and telecommnnications have also made scientists in all countries mnch more aware of international agreements, such as the Chemical Weapons Convention, and of best practices for the secure use and storage of chemicals, even on a laboratory scale. However, many chemists throughout the world still do not know about such security practices, and currently there are no certifications in international standards of security like those for safety and environmental protection. 

An arms control and disarmament agreement that entered into force on 26 March 1975. Its full name is the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons. Unlike the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), no international secretariat exists to oversee implementation of the BTWC. Treaty implementation matters, includ-... 

The role that the public has assumed - neither enshrined in the treaty documentation nor anticipated by the States Parties is another unique characteristic of the CWC. Here again, the Convention is evolutionary compared with earlier treaties and international agreements. Chemical weapons disposal has emerged as a vivid example of how local environmental justice concerns can intersect with global disarmament and nonproliferation efforts. With no formal inducement, the public has become a player in the execution of the CWC-mandated destruction of chemical weapons. What lessons can be learned from the public response and how... 

Advocates of the treaty forecast that an immense array of benefits would flow from an international agreement in Geneva. They contended that a treaty would bolster the Geneva Protocol and the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, establish legal norms against the development, production, stockpiling, transfer and retention of chemical weapons. 

The international eommunity has undertaken great efforts to abandon chemieal weapons. This endeavour resulted in an agreement, the Chemieal Weapons Convention, whieh entered into foree on 29th April 1997 and has been ratified and implemented by, at present, 192 state parties. This eonven-tion bans the produetion, stoekpiling and use of chemical weapons, and up to now more than 90% of the declared stockpiles have been destroyed. 

The entry into force of the 1993 CWC on 29 April 1997 was unique in the history of arms control. This agreement both banned an entire class of weapons and simultaneously addressed chemical proliferation concerns. It was not, however, the attention to non-proliferation that made the Convention unique, rather that the CWC incorporated an elaborate international system for verification of compliance.1... 

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