Medical Aspects of Chemical Warfare (2008) - The Black Vault

Medical Aspects of Chemical Warfarecommence by 1 year after accession and be completed10 and 5 years later, respectively. The schedule wasdesigned to activate at a date when a large portion ofthe world’s nations had ratified and acceded to it topromote a mutual, gradual rate of “leveling out” overthe 10-year implementation period. The time scheduleallows for the development, testing, and sharing ofdestruction technologies, and for confidence building.Disparities in arsenal size and economies are partiallyreduced through international technology exchangeand financial assistance. States parties can requestextensions for up to 5 years.Having agreed to the CWC in April 1997, the UnitedStates and the Russian Federation had to eliminateall category 2 and 3 chemical weapons by April 2002and category 1 chemical weapons in phases by 2007.Nations acceding to the CWC after April 1997 mustimplement this time schedule relative to their implementationdate.Inspection and VerificationOver 3,200 inspections were conducted by February2008. They are minimally intrusive, although thetreaty does allow for challenge inspections in whichany state party can request the immediate “challenge”inspection of the facilities of another state party. Challengeinspections cannot be refused by the state partybeing investigated and are done with as little warningas possible. Schedule 1, 2, and 3 site inspections arenegotiated under facility agreements by the technicalTable 4-5Chemical Weapons conventionSchedule of Implementation Planpercentage ofCategory 1 Category 1 Years After FromImplementation Chemicals Entry into AprilPhase Destroyed Force 1997Planning and 1–2 April 1999testing1 1 3 April 20002 20 5 April 20023 45 7 April 20044 100 10 April 2007Data source: Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical WeaponsWeb site. Convention on the Prohibition of the Development,Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on theirDestruction. Accessed April 22, 2008. Available at: http://www.opcw.org/html/db/cwc/eng/cwc_menu.html.secretariat to be minimally inconvenient and disturbing,employing detailed, advanced scheduling andarrangements. Advanced notice is generally givenbetween 36 and 48 hours. By December 2006 over 9years had passed without a challenge inspection, likelydue to the largely unfettered access of inspectors todeclared sites. 102 The CWC language strives to reducetensions, build confidence, and promote internationalliaisons and cooperation. Because this spirit is centralto both process and progress, challenge inspections aredeemed less an implementation tool than a last resort.NoncomplianceIn the event of noncompliance, article VIII of theCWC instructs the executive council to seek correctiveactions by the offending state party. Depending on thelatter’s response, the executive council may variouslyinvolve the conference or, in the event of a crisis, itmay inform but bypass the conference and bring itsconcerns directly to the UN General Assembly or SecurityCouncil. For example, following complaints ofpoor compliance with article VII, the OPCW demandedthat states parties implement domestic legislation andcontrols consistent with the objectives of the CWC byNovember 2005. 103Issues in ImplementationAn appeal was raised in 2003 by 60 former OPCWofficials, diplomats, negotiators, legal scholars, and scientiststo reinvigorate the unique spirit that convenedto create the CWC. This public appeal, directed at thestates parties and citizen observers, expressed concernover the fundamental lack of candor and the politicizeddirection in which the OPCW was implementing theCWC. It also protested that national governments werebecoming complacent, failing to seek ratification orenact domestic laws supporting the CWC. Wealthierstates parties were accused of undermining the CWCtimeline by failing to provide timely support to internationaldemilitarization efforts. 104A number of these criticisms and concerns weresummarized and elaborated upon a few years laterby Walter Krutzsch, a former technical secretariat officialand CWC negotiator. 105 Krutzsch criticized theexecutive committee for failing to respond to CWCviolations, including arbitrary misinterpretation ofprovisions, violations of OPCW diplomatic immunity,and failures to keep schedules. He suggested that suchcompliance issues could be resolved in a context ofgreater public transparency, claiming that the public record,OPCW’s Annual and Quarterly Reports, diminishesoverall CWC accountability by providing only aggre-140