Building A WMD-Free Zone on Existing Treaties and Conventions Syrian CWC-Adherence and Reactions, Especially in Israel
Speaking notes for the side event to the 2017 Preparatory Committee of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), organised by the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP) and Academic Peace Orchestra Middle East (APOME), Vienna, 8 May 2017. It builds on and updates an earlier posting of 13 March 2015. Operation of the CWC in the Middle East As of 1 May 2017, the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) comprises 192 states parties. The CWC entered into force 20 years ago, on 29 April 1997. It has the largest number of parties of any weapon control treaty. Four states, including two from …
Triggering Article VII of the BTWC
More complex than imagined Last November, during the 8th Review Conference of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC), the Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique (FRS) in cooperation with the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) organised a tabletop exercise on the implementation of the BTWC’s Article VII, which provides for emergency assistance in case a State Party Party has been exposed to danger as a result of a treaty violation. The Trench has already provided an account of the two-day workshop. Today, the FRS has published the final report, edited by Jean Pascal Zanders, Elisande Nexon and Ralf …
Below the headlines: CBW matters (22)
(A weekly digest from the internet on chemical and biological warfare issues. Emphasis is on incidents and perspectives, but inclusion of an item does not equal endorsement or agreement with the contents. This issue covers items collected between 10 – 16 July 2017.) CBW disarmament Scientists Review Innovative Technologies for Chemical Security (OPCW, 7 July 2017): The Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) discussed the potential uses innovative scientific and technological tools in the implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) at a workshop “Innovative Technologies for Chemical Security”, held from 3 …
Tear gas from the trenches into city streets
Book Review Anna Feigenbaum, Tear Gas (Verso: London, 2017), 224p. Anna Feigenbaum is an academic at the Centre for the Study of Journalism, Culture and Community, Bournemouth University. Her interest lies in data storytelling, an approach that benefits from increasing access to data to build a more complex narrative in support of social change. That narrative is furthermore interwoven with practitioners’ experience and empirical research. Her just published book Tear Gas: From the Battlefields of WW1 to the Streets of Today uses this approach to explain how a chemical warfare agent first used over a century ago has become a …
Education & outreach in CW disarmament 2017
Statement by Dr Jean Pascal Zanders, Chairperson of the OPCW Advisory Board on Education and Outreach, to the 22nd Conference of the States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention The Hague, (delivered) 1 December 2017 Mr Chairperson, Director-General, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, 2017 has been the second year of work for the Advisory Board on Education and Outreach (ABEO) of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). The ABEO held two meetings at the OPCW Headquarters from 14 to 16 March and from 29 to 31 August. Members also participated actively in intersessional virtual sessions to prepare and …
BTWC Meeting 2017: NGO statement
Joint NGO Statement to the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) Meeting of States Parties Geneva, 5 December 2017 Mr Chair, Distinguished Representatives: Thank you for the opportunity to speak before you today. I am pleased to have taken over the role as NGO Coordinator from Graham Pearson who so ably carried out this task for 20 years. This year, the NGO community offers a joint statement, to more powerfully focus our key messages to you. I am speaking on behalf of 19 organizations and 40 individuals, the full list of which is attached to the written copy of this statement. The …
BTWC MSP 2017 – Final document – draft (scan)
The final document of the 2017 Meeting of States Parties to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) can be downloaded from: 20171208 Final document – draft (scan) This is a scan of the draft version as it was distributed to delegations in the meeting room. Some modifications were made and insertions added. For the full official final version of the meeting report, please check in the course of next week the website of the BTWC Implementation Support Unit at http://bit.ly/2kFSj6c Jean Pascal …
The OPCW and the industry: Are there any obligations?
Opinion by Prof Benjamin Ruiz Loyola, Faculty of Chemistry, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and Member of the OPCW Advisory Board on Education and Outreach (ABEO) The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is an organization devoted to the destruction of all the chemical weapons over our world, to prevent the reemergence of this weapons of mass destruction and to prevent the abuse or misuse of dual-use chemical compounds or technologies. This activities of the OPCW are determined by the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), an international agreement signed and ratified by 192 countries (and one that in …
Novichok between opinion and fact – Part 2: When alternative facts become blatant untruths
On 18 April 2018 the Executive Council of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) held its 59th meeting, which was wholly dedicated to the assassination attempt with a nerve agent of the Novichok family. The Technical Secretariat presented its classified full ‘Report on Activities Carried out in Support of a Request for Technical Assistance by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (Technical Assistance Visit TAV/02/18)’. A summary released by the Technical Secretariat on 12 April, although lacking in detail, stated that: Two OPCW designated laboratories confirmed that the three hospitalised individuals had been exposed …
Promoting chemical knowledge
On 2 May the Technical Secretariat of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) organised a workshop relating to its programme to fully implement Article XI of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). I addressed the States Parties in the session on ‘Promoting chemical knowledge’ and focussed on the responsibilities of chemists, both as members of their scientific associations and as individuals, in preventing the misuse of their discipline. Consequences down the road The role of chemists in war is not a new thing. The role of chemists in chemical warfare is of more recent origin. Just over a …