WASHINGTON -- A new report says the international community has yet to adequately focus on the danger posed by the growing development of so-called nonlethal riot-control and incapacitating agents (see GSN, July 10, 2008).
(Nov. 6) -
Police deploy tear gas against protesters at a demonstration today in Istanbul, Turkey. Governments have continued the development various "nonlethal" agents that might be prohibited under a 1997 arms control treaty, according to a new report (Mustafa Ozer/Getty Images).
Insiders and observers for years have warned that development or use of substances intended to exert force without fatalities could run counter to the rules set by the international ban on chemical weapons. However, those warnings have not translated into new policy in the 12 years since the pact entered into force.
Meanwhile, states have continued to pursue new weapons of this type, University of Bradford analyst Michael Crowley stated in his report, "Dangerous Ambiguities: Regulation of Riot Control Agents and Incapacitants Under the Chemical Weapons Convention."
"The danger is that incapacitant research proliferates around the world and the potential for misuse of these agents proliferates as well," Crowley told Global Security Newswire. "The international community could then be faced with a fait accompli, where a growing number of those states would have the ability to use those incapacitants, either for law enforcement activities, for human rights repression of their own citizens or in armed conflict."
A U.S. official with knowledge of the issue indicated that Washington sees more pressing concerns in the nonproliferation regime, including nations armed with chemical warfare materials that remain outside the convention and the evolving nature of the global chemical industry.
"We certainly wouldn't have put that at the top of the list of the things to discuss at the Chemical Weapons Convention," said the official, who spoke on condition of not being named.
The convention identifies riot-control agents as "any chemical not listed" in one of three schedules of materials "which can produce rapidly in humans sensory irritation or disabling physical effects which disappear within a short time following termination of exposure."
There is no corresponding definition in the document for incapacitants, but Crowley described them as chemical or biochemical substances "designed to act on physiological systems, particularly the central nervous system, affecting the body in a more long-term and holistic way." Among the effects of such materials are disorientation, hallucination and loss of consciousness. "With some of them, if the antidote is not administered they can in sufficient quantities lead to death," Crowley said.
The best-known case of use of an incapacitant occurred in 2002 when Russian authorities used what was said to have been a fentanyl-based opiate to disable Chechen separatists who had taken hundreds of hostages at a Moscow theater. More than 120 of the hostages died after exposure to the chemical.
Russia, the United States and the Czech Republic since 2002 have all conducted research on incapacitants and possible means of delivery, the report says. States including China, France and the United Kingdom have also shown interest in such materials, according to Crowley.
The official in Washington said the United States is not currently developing any incapacitating chemical agents.
Riot-control agents such as tear gas are believed to have been used by law-enforcement agencies in dozens of questionable circumstances between 2004 and 2008, and in no fewer than 35 states, the researcher said. They might also have been used in contravention of the convention by Turkish forces against Kurdish militants in 1999 and by U.S. contractors in Iraq six years later, the report states.
The convention allows for use of select chemicals for "law enforcement including domestic riot control purposes" and for "military purposes not connected with the use of chemical weapons and not dependent on the use of the toxic properties of chemicals as a method of warfare."
However, the text never defines "method of warfare," law enforcement" or "domestic riot control purposes." That ambiguity could allow nations to develop varying interpretations of the meaning of the convention, potentially producing violations of its intent and deterioration of the nonproliferation regime, the report says.
"The danger of the ambiguities, if they're not addressed in time, is that states' practice could determine the limits of what is allowed and what is prohibited," Crowley said.
Keeping the door open for development or use of these materials creates a legal exception that states could use to justify rearmament with new generations of chemical weapons including agents that are potentially more lethal, said independent consultant Ralf Trapp, a former top-level official at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the verification body for the convention.
"If you allow for one of them, then you've accepted that there's an open-ended and carte blanche exception to the rule," he said.
Trying to define "law enforcement" would be an extremely sensitive discussion that would quickly extend beyond matters covered by the convention, the U.S. official argued.
The report also faults the organization and member nations to the convention for failing to adequately combat the advancement of nonlethal chemicals.
"There has been a marked failure by the OPCW oversight and policy-making organs to effectively monitor implementation of the convention with regard to the [riot control agents] and incapacitants and to take action where reports of possible breaches of the convention have become public," the report says.
The OPCW Technical Secretariat manages implementation of the convention on a daily basis but has been given little, if any, authority to initiate its own investigations of possible violations of the pact, Crowley said.
"A state party must request an investigation," he said. "And they have refused to do so, even when open-source information highlights potential breaches."
Crowley said he has found information indicating Russian and Turkish production of various munitions that carry chemical irritants in an apparent violation of the convention.
The Russian Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment on the claim, while an official at the Turkish Embassy said today that a response was still being developed. The Hague-based verification organization by press time today also had not responded to requests for comment.
Crowley expressed concern about the inability or unwillingness of the chemical nonproliferation regime to deal with major advancements in sectors such as neurological science or medical pharmacology and their potential use in developing new incapacitants.
"You don't want a situation where the international community is always running to catch up with current and future scientific developments which could be misused. And that seems to be the situation now," he said.
Member nations have been reluctant to press the matter. The two review conferences conducted to date to assess the operation of the convention have ended without inclusion of the nonlethal issue being "satisfactorily" addressed, Crowley said.
Nonetheless, the OPCW Technical Secretariat and some states, led by Switzerland, showed an increased willingness to discuss incapacitants leading to and during the second review conference in 2008, according to Crowley and Trapp.
"There are certainly some states parties that have woken up to the fact that there are risks," Trapp said. "There were certainly attempts at the last review conference to open up discussion on it. It was probably too early to move that into a public forum because it is quite a delicate and complicated issue."
Crowley said he hopes that governments will in short order review the matter so that it can be addressed at the 2013 review conference. The U.S. official said the government was not opposed to such policy discussions, but said that those pressing the issue had been "poorly prepared" at the last conference.
The report ends with a number of policy recommendations regarding riot control agents and incapacitants.
The university's Nonlethal Weapons Research Project supports establishing "informal intergovernmental mechanisms" to consider better regulating the materials under the convention. Such mechanisms are also needed to address the ambiguities in the pact, to give the Technical Secretariat greater autonomy to investigate situations of concern and to better prepare the other OPCW policy organizations to effectively deal with the matter, the document states.
An immediate first step, according to the report, should be a moratorium on weaponization of incapacitants until their status under the convention has been fully resolved.
The report also calls for improvements to reporting, transparency and verification procedures. This would include the promotion of "good practice" in filing required documents on riot control agents -- providing openness on the holdings of materials and means of delivery and which agencies are authorized to keep and use such substances.
"This is a process that's not going to be completed overnight by any stretch of the imagination," Crowley said, "but it needs to start now."