Barbados Joins Chemical Weapons Convention

The island nation of Barbados this month became the 182nd country to join the Chemical Weapon Convention (see GSN, Nov. 22, 2006).

Barbados submitted its instrument of accession on March 7 with the United Nations.  The treaty will enter into force in the country on April 6.

The Dominican Republic and the Bahamas are now the only two Caribbean nations that have yet to join the treaty banning development, production, stockpiling or use of weapons containing materials such as sarin, VX or mustard agent.

“As soon as those two are on board, then essentially the entire hemisphere will have joined,” Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons spokesman Peter Kaiser said today.

A total of 13 nations have not joined the convention.  The other nonmember states are Angola, the Republic of Congo, Guinea Bissau, Somalia, Myanmar, North Korea, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon and Syria (Chris Schneidmiller, Global Security Newswire, March 13).

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