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OPCW Annual Report Cites Progress, Problems
By the end of 2001, India and the United States had destroyed 20
percent of their most dangerous chemical weapons, according to an
annual report the Organization
for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) released in October.
The OPCW, which oversees implementation of the Chemical Weapons
Convention (CWC), also said that other states were making progress
in destroying chemical weapons and related facilities, despite some
major delays, but that financial difficulties had led it to conduct
fewer inspections than scheduled.
Four CWC states-parties have declared that they possess chemical
weapons, which the convention prohibits and requires to be destroyed.
Two of those countries, India and the United States, completed destruction
of 20 percent of their Category 1 chemical weapons stockpiles—agents
with high potential for offensive use—ahead of the April 29,
2002, deadline set by the CWC. In October the CWC conference of
the states-parties agreed to grant an extension to the two other
countries—Russia and an unnamed CWC member state believed to
be South Korea—to destroy 20 percent of their Category 1 weapons.
(See ACT, November 2002.)
India and Russia finished destroying all their Category 3 chemical
weapons in 2001, according to the report. Category 3 weapons are
munitions, containers, or equipment that do not contain chemical
agent but are specifically connected to the use of chemical weapons.
The United States had destroyed more than 99 percent of its Category
3 chemical weapons by the end of 2001 and has since completed the
effort. The unnamed country had completed destruction of Category
3 weapons in 1999. Efforts to destroy Category 2 weapons—chemicals
that do not fall under Category 1 but could be precursors to Category
1 chemicals or otherwise have offensive potential—in India
and Russia were also “well underway” in 2001, according
to the report. The United States and the unnamed country have not
declared any Category 2 weapons.
By the end of 2001, all but two of the then-145 CWC states-parties
had fufilled their treaty obligation to declare any chemical weapons
and related facilities they have to the OPCW, continuing a positive
trend of more states complying with the declarations requirement,
the report says. At the end of 1999, 34 member states had yet to
submit their declarations, but by the end of 2000 only five countries
had failed to do so. “This positive development greatly facilitated
the Secretariat’s planning of inspection activities, particularly
for the first three months of 2002,” according to the report.
The OPCW verified that in 2001 states-parties destroyed “957
tonnes of chemical weapons agent contained in 219,592 munitions
items and bulk containers and 289,580 unfilled munitions, devices
and specifically designed items of equipment in three of the four
chemical weapons possessor States Parties,” the report says.
The organization also verified that 27 former chemical weapons production
facilities were destroyed and eight were converted for nonmilitary
uses.
Because of financial difficulties, however, the OPCW conducted
only 200 inspections in 2001—68 percent of the 293 inspections
budgeted for that year. The organization’s budget for 2001
was more than $62 million, and the secretariat scaled back the number
of inspections to avoid a deficit, according to the report.
Meanwhile, Thailand deposited its instrument of ratification of
the CWC with the UN secretary-general on December 10, 2002, becoming
the 148th state-party to the CWC January 9, 2003.
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