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DISARMAMENT: Chemical Weapons – One-Third Down, Two-Thirds To Go

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Aug 7 2007 (IPS) - The director general of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Rogelio Pfirter, urged the United Nations Conference on Disarmament Tuesday to recover the dynamism that led to the adoption of the convention against these weapons.

"While the pace of destruction of chemical weapons stockpiles has not matched the high initial expectations and, as a consequence, understandable concerns have arisen, we remain steadfast in our goal of ridding the planet completely of chemical weapons," Pfirter told the conference in Geneva.

The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) has proven to be, on the 10th anniversary of its entry into force, one of the most successful international disarmament treaties, say experts, in terms of the number of signatory nations as well as the quantity of toxic agents destroyed to date.

Over the past decade, the OPCW, which monitors compliance with the convention, has certified the destruction of 24,000 tonnes of chemical agents. This is equivalent to one-third of the chemical arsenals declared worldwide, the Argentine diplomat told IPS.

Pfirter said the convention is a good example of how multilateral efforts could bear fruit in a viable agreement, which has achieved concrete progress after 10 years.

Tangible results have been achieved in all areas: disarmament, weapons control, non-proliferation and international cooperation, he said.

The 182 states party to the CWC represent 98 percent of the world population, and this is the fastest rate of membership achieved by any of the disarmament treaties, he emphasised.

Only 13 countries have not ratified the convention, although six of them have signed it: the Bahamas, Burma (Myanmar), the Dominican Republic, Guinea Bissau, Israel, and the Republic of Congo.

The countries that have not even signed include Angola, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, North Korea, Somalia and Syria.

"The lack of support for the convention in the Middle East represents a serious void on our map, where Egypt, Israel and Syria continue to cite regional security concerns for not joining the convention," Pfirter said.

However, an expert on disarmament issues resident in Geneva told IPS that the convention’s progress "isn’t bad, but neither is it perfect." The expert, who asked to remain anonymous, remarked that in some countries the destruction of chemical stockpiles is taking too long.

Pfirter accepts that "there is plenty of room for improvement. One of the areas in which we must move more decisively is in destruction." However, over 30 percent of the arsenals have been eliminated under OPCW verification, he noted.

Nevertheless, he admitted that this was not ideal. "The convention had envisaged that we would be further ahead, but in any case it is a significant reduction, he said. Also, it is evidence that the political will to achieve total destruction is still there."

The OPCW now faces the challenge of completing the destruction of all declared stockpiles of chemical weapons by 2012. "I trust that the states most involved in this, Russia and the United States, will do everything possible to complete the job. But yes, it’s a pending issue," he said.

Russia has already eliminated 22 percent of its chemical weapons. One year ago, only 10 percent had been destroyed.

The United States, meanwhile, did away with 13,000 tonnes, equivalent to 46 percent of its total chemical weapons.

Elimination of chemical arsenals is complex and costly, Pfirter said. The United States has already spent some 20 billion dollars on the effort, and estimates that it will require another 40 billion dollars to complete the process.

Russia must also use modern technology to eliminate a nerve agent packed into rockets at the Maradykovsky plant, about 700 kilometres northeast of Moscow. Because of the nature of the weapon, not only does the nerve toxin have to be neutralised, but an explosion has to be avoided, Pfirter said. Then they have to destroy the rocket parts, he said.

The success of the CWC is attributed by experts to the OPCW’s system of verification of compliance with the treaty. A treaty may be signed without a verification system in place, Pfirter said, but its results would then be far more uncertain because there would be no means of checking that the states’ commitments had been effectively fulfilled.

A total of 2,900 inspections have been carried out in 79 countries since the system began to operate.

Indeed, the president of the Sixth Review Conference of the Biological Weapons Convention, Pakistani diplomat Masood Khan, emphasised that this treaty is an instrument of principles, rather than procedures, when he addressed the Conference on Tuesday.

The Biological Weapons Convention has no provisions for control or verification of its fulfilment, which "many consider to be a serious shortcoming," Khan said.

The states party to the Biological Weapons Convention were on the verge of approving a protocol for a verification system in 2001, when the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks took place in the United States. At the next review meeting of the parties, the U.S. representative, John Bolton, flatly opposed the possibility of a monitoring instrument.

The expert who spoke to IPS in confidence remarked that there has been a change in the U.S. approach to certain disarmament issues since Bolton resigned from his government functions in Washington early this year. Another disarmament convention, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which was also discussed and approved by the Disarmament Conference in Geneva, is running into similar hurdles blocking its entry into force.

The CTBT requires the signatures of and ratification by 44 states, of which only 34 have complied. The 10 countries lacking to make the treaty legally binding are China, Colombia, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan and the United States.