Chemical Weapons Pact Hits 10 With Challenges Ahead

By Chris Schneidmiller
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The story of the Chemical Weapons Convention can be boiled down to this:  there are fewer chemical weapons now than there were a decade ago (see GSN, March 30).

It has been 10 years since the treaty became an international rule of law covering scores of nations.  In that time it has become arguably the most successful arms control and nonproliferation pact, without question reducing the threat posed by toxic warfare agents.

Events are being scheduled across the globe this year to observe the work that has been done and to spotlight the need for continued attention to the treaty’s goals.

Observers have also used the anniversary to address the challenges that face the treaty.  They say states will probably still be destroying weapons at the convention’s 20th anniversary, and preventing the creation of new weapons is a job with no end in sight.

“I think the Chemical Weapons Convention is a stable agreement, it’s being implemented well on the whole.  When it’s compared with its sister treaties … it’s seen as a huge success,” said Angela Woodward, deputy director of the Verification Research, Training and Information Center in London.  “But we need to remember that there are still many aspects of the CWC that need to be implemented for it to really achieve its goal of verifying chemical weapons disarmament and being able to ensure nonproliferation of chemical weapons.”

The Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction entered into force on April 29, 1997.  Its lengthy title made its intent obvious:  to prevent nations from producing or employing munitions containing toxic materials such as sarin  and VX nerve agents or mustard blister gas, and to require all treaty parties to eliminate any such weapons within one decade.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons came into existence alongside the treaty.  Its job was to watch over nations to ensure they met their obligations under the pact, and to assist them in that effort.

The wars of the 20th century had given good cause for a chemical disarmament regime.  A number of nations produced and used poison gases during World War I.  Production of toxic materials would continue in the succeeding decades, and despite existing prohibitions they were put to use by Italy in Ethiopia in the 1930s, by Japan during its war against China beginning in 1937, and during the Iran-Iraq war through most of the 1980s.

The convention had 87 states parties upon entry into force, and today has 182 member nations.  It is the only treaty to both outlaw an entire type of weapon and have a verification body to ensure that rule is enforced.

“On the whole it’s very much a good news story,” said Paul Walker, director of the Legacy Program at the environmental group Global Green USA.  “We’ve developed an international regime that bans a whole class of weapons of mass destruction for the first time in history.  Not only have we built this regime but we’ve built a very strong and skilled verification regime inspectorate underneath it.”

The six treaty nations known to hold modern chemical weapons — Albania, India, Libya, Russia, South Korea and the United States — have to date eliminated a quarter of the 71,330 metric tons of toxic agents and nearly 2.7 million munitions and containers.  Forty-one of 65 chemical weapons production sites globally have been destroyed and 18 converted to peaceful purposes, according to OPCW figures.  Work also continues in a number of countries on finding and destroying old or abandoned chemical weapons, notably the hundreds of thousands of Japanese munitions left in China at the end of World War II (see GSN, March 27).

Each eliminated weapon or manufacturing plant is one less that could be used in a war between nations, or diverted for acts of terrorism.

Some of this could have occurred without the convention — Russia and the United States together possess more than 90 percent of the world’s chemical weapons, and had jointly decided before the treaty’s birth to destroy their stockpiles, Walker said.  The treaty, though, brought the previously unknown arsenals of Albania, India and South Korea into the light, experts told Global Security Newswire.

It has also created a political taboo against the development of chemical weapons programs that did not exist in past decades.  There are far fewer nations of concern when it comes to chemical weapons than 20 or 30 years ago, and no nation is trumpeting such a program, said biological and chemical weapons expert Richard Guthrie.

“If a Botswana or an Indonesia or even an Argentina — to take three countries at random — were to suddenly announce it was withdrawing from the treaty and going to be ready to use chemical weapons, it would be condemned around the world, and would find it difficult to be doing trade and all kinds of other things, simply because the world has changed,” Guthrie said.

The demilitarization process, though, has not been without pitfalls and unanticipated complications.  Not a single identified weapons possessor states has met the original 10-year deadline to eliminate their stockpiles, and there is strong suspicion that nations that have yet to join are holding such toxic munitions. 

The treaty permits its parties to apply for a single, five-year extension to deadline to destroy all chemical munitions.  Five of the six known weapons states have applied and received extensions.

Albania is the only nation not to ask for more time.  As of Sunday, it will have missed the 10-year deadline, but its program to incinerate 16 tons of mustard agent is expected to be finished within a matter of months.  The government in Tirana has been open about the technical difficulties it faced in opening its small facility, and is unlikely to face any penalties for the delay.

The major question is the disposal efforts of Russia and the United States.  The U.S. Defense Department has eliminated nearly 45 percent of the country’s roughly 27,000 tons of chemical agent since destruction began in 1990.  Officials acknowledged last year that they do not expect to complete work until 2023 — 11 years beyond the extended deadline it was given in 2006 (see GSN, Dec. 11, 2006).  Russia did not open its first disposal site until 2002, but has quickly ramped up work and vows to meet its 2012 deadline.  Experts say Moscow’s late start and 40,000-ton arsenal make that unlikely.

“Certainly this has not gone as quickly as we hoped when we signed the treaty,” said a U.S. official familiar with the issue.

Munitions and agent elimination has proven to be far more complex than anticipated years ago.  U.S. officials last year cited a variety of reasons for the extended disposal schedule, including delays in obtaining necessary operating permits; meeting additional community preparedness requirements; maintenance stoppages; investigation and resolution of problems; and challenges in handling decaying munitions.

Experts acknowledged the complicated nature of the work, but argued that the United States could move up the completion date for work by increasing funding for the two sites linked most closely to the delay.  Preparation of yet-unbuilt disposal plants in Colorado and Kentucky has been “grossly and intentionally” underfunded, Walker said (see GSN, March 30).

“In the United States, the pace of destruction has slowed in recent years and will need to be accelerated significantly to meet the 2012 deadline,” said chemical weapons expert Jonathan Tucker, a visiting fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.  “Two more destruction facilities must still be built. …  But the Pentagon has cut funding for these facilities to help pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

The worst-case result of missed deadlines is that other nations would feel less pressure to meet their own treaty obligations, Tucker said.

The Defense Department is focused on reducing costs for the weapons neutralization sites at Pueblo, Colo., and Blue Grass, Ky., which have a combined life cycle cost of about $8 billion.  “Reductions in cost have the potential to reduce schedule, either through increased efficiency or the application of funding saved to time-sensitive expenditures, such as the earlier purchase of construction materials or equipment,” the Pentagon said by e-mail.  “Precise estimates of such time savings are case dependent.”

Diplomats at the 2006 treaty conference spoke often of the importance of meeting disposal deadlines.  However, there is little open discussion among states parties or OPCW officials on what is likely to occur when those deadlines pass and weapons remain.

OPCW Director General Rogelio Pfirter told Arms Control Today last month that “the issue of noncompliance is something that we should not prematurely address at this stage.  It is an issue to be looked at later, as we come closer to the deadlines.”

Experts noted a number of possible responses by the treaty states five years from now, from noncompliant nations losing their voting rights to being expelled from the treaty.  Those are extreme and unlikely responses, particularly given the political strength of Russia and the United States, they said.  Any responses would be based on whether those nations can prove their intent to complete work, and are likely to tend toward further verification measures and additional political pressure to finish the job.

“I think the emphasis is on facilitating compliance with the deadlines, and keeping up diplomatic pressure so that the objective of those deadlines is met, so that the stockpiles are destroyed,” Woodward said.  “I think that if they go over those treaty deadlines, much comment will be made of it but I doubt whether tough sanctions will be applied.”

Even when the known chemical weapons states have eliminated their entire arsenals, there is a very real possibility that other nations would secretly maintain stockpiles of their own.  Thirteen nations have yet to join the treaty, including suspected chemical weapons developers North Korea, Syria, Egypt and Israel.  Iraq, which saw its significant chemical weapon stockpiles destroyed by U.N. officials following the 1991 Gulf War, has also not signed the treaty.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons continues its long-term diplomatic effort to draw additional nations to the treaty.  Resolution of the North Korean nuclear standoff could open the door for Pyongyang to declare and begin dealing with its chemical arsenal.  There has also been some movement among Middle Eastern nations — Libya joined in 2004, Iraq and Lebanon could sign on this year, and Israel and Egypt have sent observers to treaty meetings.  

There are mechanisms that could press these nations toward joining the convention — for example, expanding the list of chemicals that cannot be exported to or imported from nontreaty states — but ultimate resolution of this dilemma could be tied to a Middle East peace.  Pfirter counters that joining the convention should be seen as a building block for that peace (see GSN, Dec. 8, 2006).

Any nation that joins the treaty after Sunday would have already missed the original deadline to destroy any chemical weapons stockpile.  The treaty calls on those states to “destroy chemical weapons … as soon as possible.  The order of destruction and procedures for stringent verification of such a state party shall be determined by the Executive Council.”

The destruction of chemical weapons is the highest-profile task under the treaty, but also one that someday is likely to be finished.  There is no end date, though, for the organization’s work of inspecting chemical industry sites to ensure they are not being used to produce warfare agents.

There are roughly 180 OPCW inspectors who have the task of monitoring weapons disposal along with thousands of private chemical production plants.

Nearly 1,000 of these sites produce chemicals listed on one of three treaty “schedules,” the treaty’s categories of chemical weapon agents and their precursors.  There are more than 5,000 “Other Chemical Production Facilities,” any site that produces more than 200 tons annually of discrete organic chemicals not included in a schedule list.

OPCW personnel over the last decade have examined more than 800 industry sites, but have directed the majority of their time toward monitoring weapons disposal.  According to figures from 2005, the agency directed 15,519 inspector days to weapons destruction monitoring, compared to just 1,379 days at schedule chemical productions sites and 1,272 days at the “other” sites, Tucker wrote in an article this year.

The limited attention to those “OCPF” sites relative to their numbers is not sufficient to ensure they are complying with the treaty, Tucker said.  Roughly 15 percent of those facilities have the flexibility to switch rapidly to production of banned chemicals, he said.

“The number of OCPF inspections has increased slightly, from 90 last year to 118 planned for this year, but far more are needed for effective verification,” Tucker said.

Walker said he would like to see the OPCW double its inspector force.  The agency has already freed up some personnel for industry monitoring by “optimizing” inspections at weapons sites — through technology and measures including smaller inspection teams and streamlined verification procedures — and more inspectors would become available as weapons disposal winds down.

Whether the treaty’s nations would support a refocused industry inspection regime, which potentially could boost checks on OCPF sites at the expense of the schedule plants, is questionable.  Developing nations such as Pakistan fear bearing the brunt of increased inspections, Tucker said.

Pfirter — who could not be reached for this article — told Arms Control Today that he is intent on changing the methodology by which facilities are selected for industry inspections.  The system now does not differentiate between nations with few plants and those with many — meaning inspectors might visit all sites in a country with 10 plants but a tiny percentage of sites in a nation with 1,000.

Nations themselves need to step up to ensure their fellow states parties comply fully with the convention, observers said.

The treaty allows member nations to request an OPCW challenge inspection of any declared or undeclared facility in another state party “for the sole purpose of clarifying and resolving any questions concerning possible noncompliance.”  Such mandatory inspections would be intended to uncover hidden weapons work or banned industrial activity.  However, no nation has ever requested one, though the United States has made it clear that it suspects Iran and other nations of violating the treaty.

Challenge inspections were intended to complement routine monitoring.  Instead they have taken on an aura of political risk that has grown the longer the checks went unused, experts said.  They invite the risk of retaliation and an unsuccessful challenge by a Western nation on a developing country could be seen as example of unfair treatment, said John Gilbert, a senior science fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation in Washington. 

“A challenge inspection has become like the third rail of the CWC.  Nobody wants to touch it,” he said.

Some treaty nations are also failing to meet their obligations to monitor industry within their borders by failing to fully implement national implementation measures, Tucker said.

The treaty requires all states parties to “adopt the necessary measures to ensure that toxic chemicals and their precursors are only developed, produced, otherwise acquired, retained, transferred, or used within its territory or in any other place under its jurisdiction or control for purposes not prohibited under this convention.”

To fulfill this requirement, states must designate a national authority to monitor industry and provide assistance to OPCW officials during inspections.  They are also required to enact export controls, penal legislation outlawing actions banned by the treaty and other measures.  Almost all states parties have a national authority, but less than half have adopted the full range of required laws, Tucker said.  That comes despite continued assistance from OPCW officials and other nations.

“With the increasing number of states parties, the actual proportion of states parties with effective implementation legislation in place is decreasing,” said VERTIC’s Woodward.  These provisions must be universal or people looking to develop or acquire chemical weapons will seek out weak links where they would be less likely to be caught, Guthrie said.

Advances in technology would make it easier to disguise development of new chemical weapons agents as legitimate industrial production, Tucker said in his paper.  He used as an example Russian “novichok” agents, which “lack the carbon-phosphorus bond that is the hallmark of classical nerve agents such sarin and soman, making the newer agents more difficult to identify.”  The relatively nontoxic components of binary chemical weapons could also be developed “for ostensibly legitimate purposes,” Tucker said.

Woodward, Tucker and others also called for greater attention to the issue of nonlethal chemicals under the convention (see GSN, Dec. 7, 2006).

Under the treaty, riot-control agents — tear gas and similar chemicals that “can produce in humans sensory irritation or disabling effects which disappear within a short time following termination of exposure” — are eligible for law-enforcement uses.  However, concerns persist that the exemption would allow not only use of riot-control agents, but of incapacitants that have longer-lasting effects.

“Unfortunately, the phrase ‘law enforcement, including domestic riot control’ is ambiguous, and I think deliberately so,” Tucker said.  “It was not only designed to enable the United States to employ lethal chemicals for capital punishment, but it gave countries some leeway in developing powerful incapacitants for counterterrorism operations.  Permitting the use of powerful incapacitants as well as RCAs for law enforcement is a slippery slope that could lead to greater military interest in these chemicals, eroding the basic norms in the treaty.”

The end to the 2002 siege at a Moscow theater illustrates the danger of increased use of nonlethal agents, experts said.  More than 100 hostages died after exposure to a gas that security forces used to subdue Chechen rebels (see GSN, Nov. 8, 2002).

States parties to the treaty should have the opportunity to address any or all of these issues at upcoming meetings, particularly the 2008 review conference.

The conferences conducted every five years offer nations the opportunity to address the “purpose and operation of the convention,” Guthrie said, and to seek strategies for strengthening its implementation.

The U.S. official said he expected the conference to be “seized with the issue” of deadlines and strategies for completing weapons disposal on schedule.  A host of other matters could be raised, observers said — universality of membership and national implementation, OPCW organizational and inspection needs and verification.  Whether states will want to take on the issue of nonlethal incapacitants is up for debate.

As the threat of existing weapons dwindles, the organization is expected to turn its attention increasingly to ensuring that no new weapons are developed.

“It’ll be a long-term nonproliferation enforcement regime, as opposed to a demilitarization regime which it is now,” Walker said.  “And it will largely just be a very strong globally enforced inspectorate that politically makes the use of chemical weapons in any military fashion absolutely taboo.”

The challenges in this work are sure to increase over time as well, Woodward said.  Scientific and technological advancements would allow for more elaborate techniques for hiding development of banned agents, while nations might fail to maintain effective internal measures after meeting their initial commitments, she said.  The OPCW Technical Secretariat will also need to watch for facilities with the capability to rapidly convert to production of chemical weapons during a conflict, Tucker said.

Pfirter had his own thoughts on his the standing of his organization and the convention 10 years from now, he told Arms Control Today.

“In the long run, the nonproliferation regime will remain vital.  In the field of cooperation and assistance, the organization will have ensured that countries develop the ability to face threats,” he said.  “I don’t know whether the threat of terrorism will be as pertinent in 10 years time as it is today, but certainly security will remain a concern.  We also need to make sure that the OPCW is capable of helping countries to acquire the means to face such a threat.”

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