WASHINGTON -- Members of the Chemical Weapons Convention this month threw down something of a challenge to the dozen nations that have yet to join the international disarmament and nonproliferation treaty (see GSN, April 11).
Diplomats spent two weeks producing a report that reviews the operations of the treaty and addresses developing issues in its implementation. The 32-page final version, approved early Saturday morning, urges the final 12 holdouts to joint the pact "as a matter of urgency and without preconditions."
It then names those countries: Angola, the Bahamas, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Guinea-Bissau, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Myanmar, North Korea, Somalia and Syria.
"No one will have to guess who they are," said Rogelio Pfirter, director general at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the verification body for the treaty.
Nations considered treaty universality in 2003 at the first review conference for the convention but did not identify the outsider states in their final report.
"While this wasn't done at RC-1 it might have more to do with there being only 12 non-states parties left now compared with over 40 in 2003," Daniel Feakes, a research fellow at the Harvard Sussex Program, said by e-mail. "However, it could be a useful hook to pressure the 12 holdouts, although it would need to be brought to their attention first."
Guinea-Bissau, Iraq and Lebanon appear on the cusp of joining the convention, according to the conference report, whose authors called for "full use of all available opportunities and resources" to increase membership.
A total of 114 of the 183 treaty states participated in the second review conference in The Hague, where much of the business occurred in closed meetings as delegates sought to turn a draft document prepared before the meeting into a final statement. As negotiating sessions lengthened and the end of the meeting approached it came down to a select group of about 20 nations to hammer out much of the report. Negotiations were punctuated by a nearly 24-hour burst of activity at the end of the meeting, according to chemical weapons expert Richard Guthrie.
Pfirter called the resulting report, released publicly on Wednesday, a strong affirmation of the principles and objectives of the convention and of the obligations of its members to prevent the development, production, stockpiling or use of materials such as mustard gas and the nerve agents sarin and VX.
In the wide-ranging document that addressed many of the issues facing the treaty regime, diplomats noted destruction of nearly 40 percent of the world's known chemical weapons and emphasized the importance of maintaining disposal campaigns on schedule; recognized the OPCW verification system that has conducted more than 3,000 inspections at weapons and industry sites; urged all member nations to enact legislation and other mandatory treaty implementation measures; and warned of the threat posed by use the of chemical weapons by nonstate actors.
"I think that given the fact that it represents a consensus of 183 countries it is a success, it is a significant success," Pfirter said in an interview with Global Security Newswire.
Observers, though, said that nearly two years of preparations followed by the two-week meeting produced a document that was not as strong as they had hoped.
"It's certainly weaker in parts than many people would have liked," Guthrie, who filed daily reports from the conference, told GSN. "The surprising one is that it's even weaker on some of the demands for destruction than I would have expected."
Chemical weapons stockpiles are still held by treaty states India, Libya, Russia, the United States and an officially unidentified nation known to be South Korea (see GSN, April 8). China is also home to hundreds of thousands of munitions abandoned by Japan after World War II (see GSN, April 24).
The flip side of eliminating nearly 40 percent of the declared global stocks of chemical weapons is the 60 percent that remains, the conference acknowledged. It reaffirmed the importance of destruction of weapons and weapons production sites and urged possessor states to meet disposal deadlines that were extended in 2006 (see GSN, Dec. 11, 2006).
Guthrie argued that firmer language could have put more pressure on the possessor states but also potentially benefited them. For example, U.S. officials could have used a tougher document as a basis for seeking additional funding to accelerate destruction of the U.S. arsenal, he said.
While the language on destruction could have been stronger, Feakes said, it was more firm than what was seen in the 2003 report. The issue also received higher standing, "a small point but perhaps indicative of its increasing importance," he said.
There has been talk of conducting a special meeting closer to the treaty's final destruction deadline of 2012 to decide how to deal with the anticipated schedule violations by Russia and the United States. The problems that arose at this session could reduce interest in following through on the idea, said Cheryl Vos, a research associate at the Federation of American Scientists. "I think it also decreases the likelihood of something productive emerging from such a meeting," she said by e-mail.
Vos and Feakes, who both attended the first week of the conference, said the review conference statement does not significantly address some unfolding technical issues -- developments in science and technology that could produce new threats to the regime and the increasing focus on industry verification as national stockpiles are eliminated.
The language regarding science and technology actually represents a step back from what was included in the 2003 document and in the draft version of this year's report, Feakes said. The final 2008 statement "notes the impact" of development in these sectors but does not address new chemicals, he said. There is also no discussion of how advances in biology and nanotechnology might pertain to the convention, Vos said.
As expected, the report includes no language regarding concerns about development of new incapacitating agents (see GSN, June 11, 2007). Pfirter has said that more research is needed before treaty states can reasonably consider the issue.
The conference did call for two meetings each year of the OPCW Scientific Advisory Board, which provides guidance on technical issues and to date has met annually. That "at least will facilitate further study on issues it receives," Vos said.
Conference participants did not produce much language on the different expertise needed at the agency as it becomes largely a nonproliferation monitor ensuring that industry sites are not diverted for weapons production, Vos said.
However, they took a harder look at verification of the thousands of "other chemical production facilities," some of which could be converted quickly to produce weapons materials. Delegates directed Pfirter to consider strategies for determining which sites across the globe are most relevant to the treaty and most in need of inspection. They ruled out requiring facilities to provide more information about their operations to support such an effort.
The document must be considered imperfect but valuable, Guthrie said. It covers many of the pressing issues surrounding the Chemical Weapons Convention and compromise must be anticipated when more than 100 nations are involved. The conference is also not the sole forum for consideration of these matters, he said, citing the working group that prepared the draft declaration and various treaty-related events.
That delegates were able to reach consensus and produce a statement is an improvement over the results of similar meetings for other nonproliferation treaties, he said (see GSN, Dec. 10, 2001, and May 27, 2005).
"It's not that it's a missed opportunity, it's just that there were chances to do more," Guthrie said. "I think overall it could have been worse, it could have been far, far worse."