The following articles and essays provide additional insight into current developments and issues which our staff and experts are following.
The executive council’s comprehensive decision hailed dissent and dissatisfaction from certain member states that appear intent on shielding Syria from accountability for its egregious violations of the CWC.
Though concerning, possible violations of arms-related provisions of Resolution 2231 by Iran are not grounds for the unilateral U.S. actions to prevent the embargo’s expiration.
The June 5 IAEA report provides additional detail about the agency's investigation into possible undeclared nuclear materials and activities tied to Iran's past nuclear weapons development efforts and noted that Tehran has yet to comply with the agency’s requests for information and access.
The IAEA's latest report assessing Iran’s compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal noted that Tehran’s stockpile of low enriched uranium continues to increase beyond limits set by the accord.
While the Chemical Weapons Convention bans the use of toxic chemicals in warfare because they do not discriminate between combatants and non-combatants, but carves out an exception for their use for "domestic riot control purposes" despite their indiscriminate use against non-violent protestors and those engaged in acts of violence alike.
The Arms Control Association hosted a briefing on "The Future of New START and U.S. National Security" on April 29. Here are some answers to additional questions that participants submitted but that the speakers were unable to address due to time constraints.
An inaugural report released April 8 by the OPCW's new Investigation and Identification Team (IIT) attributes a series of chemical weapons attacks in Syria in March 2017 to the Syrian Air Force. The new OPCW team has a mandate to assign responsibility for chemical attacks identified by the OPCW's Fact-Finding Mission reports that were not investigated by the United Nations-OPCW Joint Investigative Mechanism, which was dissolved in 2017.
Two new reports by the IAEA detail the status of Iran’s nuclear program and raise questions about its compliance with its international legal obligations. While Iran continues to comply with its JCPOA-related safeguards and has not taken further steps to breach the 2015 nuclear deal, the IAEA is investigating possible undeclared nuclear activities likely related to Iran’s pre-2004 nuclear weapons research.
As the United Nations system staggers under increasing levels of debt, a small group of other multilateral treaties, many of which focus on disarmament topics, are threatened for another reason: lack of money.
Will arms trade issues have a prominent role in the public discourse that leads up to the 2020 U.S. election?