Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC)

Overview

Potential Facility Impacts

Current Activities

Overview

Purpose and Background

The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) [long title: The Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction] is the first multilateral arms control and disarmament treaty to include a verification regime affecting both military and commercial industry activities. The Convention prohibits States Parties from developing, producing, otherwise acquiring, stockpiling, retaining, transferring directly or indirectly, and using chemical weapons (CW). The Convention also prohibits any State Party from assisting anyone to engage in CWC-prohibited activities.

Each State Party is required to submit a detailed initial data declaration and periodic updates. Each Party is also obligated to destroy all CW in its possession, or under its jurisdiction, and to destroy or convert all CW production facilities. In addition, each Party is obligated to destroy all CW it abandoned on the territory of other States Parties.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is the international organization responsible for CWC implementation. The OPCW consists of the Executive Council (EC), the Conference of the States Parties (CSP), and the Technical Secretariat (TS). The CSP is the principle organ of the OPCW for ensuring compliance with the Convention’s provisions. As stipulated in the Convention, the CSP meets annually (at a minimum) and oversees the EC and the TS.

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Potential Facility Impacts

Key Verification Measures

To ensure compliance, the Convention includes an extensive verification regime under which States Parties submit data declarations and host on-site inspection activities conducted by inspection teams sent from the OPCW. The OPCW TS regularly sends thee teams to conduct inspections and continuous monitoring activities at CW destruction and storage facilities, and to inspect other government and commercial chemical industry facilities.

For purposes of verifying compliance with the Convention, the CWC categorizes chemicals into three lists or "schedules." There is also a list of unscheduled discrete organic chemicals (UDOC). The types of chemicals in each of these four categories are described below.

• Schedule 1 chemicals have little or no commercial use and either have been used in chemical weapons or have a high potential for use in activities prohibited under the Convention. Examples include nerve agents such as Sarin, and blister agents such as Mustard and Lewisite.

• Schedule 2 chemicals have some legitimate uses but are not produced in large commercial quantities. These agents include toxic chemicals and many precursor chemicals that could be used for CW production. Examples include certain chemicals used to manufacture fertilizers and pesticides.

• Schedule 3 chemicals have many legitimate uses and are produced in large quantities for commercial use. However these agents include chemicals and some precursor chemicals that can be used for CW production. Examples include chemicals used to manufacture paint thinners, cleaners, and lubricants.

• UDOCsare chemical compounds of carbon except for its oxides, sulfides and metal carbonates; and other chemicals—especially chemicals containing phosphorus, sulfur or fluorine (PSF)—whose use in production is monitored under the CWC.

The United States has declared a large number of commercial facilities under the CWC as well as relevant military facilities. Declared facilities are obliged to prepare and submit annual data declarations concerning their chemical or CW-related activities and may be obliged to host on-site inspection activities. In addition to declared facilities, any facility could be selected for a challenge inspection. A challenge inspection could be conducted to resolve a concern about non-compliance at a particular facility raised by another State Party and submitted to the Director-General of the OPCW.

Challenge inspections can be stopped by a two-thirds majority vote by the OPCW Executive Council. Also, in the United States, U.S. law empowers the President to "deny a request to inspect any facility in the United States in cases where the President determines that the inspection may pose a threat to the national security interests of the United States."

The primary security concern for facilities during on-site inspection activities is the potential for the inadvertent loss of confidential business or other sensitive information due to the presence of highly qualified and experienced inspectors. Factors to be considered with assessing these risks include the types of equipment the inspectors may be allowed to operate on site to collect information, the types of inspection activities that may be conducted, and the level of access the inspectors may have to facility records, buildings, and other areas.

One way to limit security risks is to conclude facility agreements with the OPCW. Facility agreements enable States Parties to limit the inspection team’s access during routine inspections in order to protect national security, confidential business, and other sensitive information. OPCW TS inspectors are also bound by the OPCW’s confidentiality regime, which requires all OPCW employees to safeguard confidential information obtained from data declarations and during on-site inspection activities.

In the event of a challenge inspection, the United States also has the right to establish procedures to protect sensitive information. Such procedures, however, should not prevent the United States from demonstrate compliance with the CWC. To successfully develop and implement appropriate and cost-effective procedures for any type of inspection is a complex task. Advice and assistance is available from the DTIRP Outreach Program, the Department of Commerce (DOC), and other U.S. Government agencies when requested.

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Current Activities

Recent Developments

As of January 2010, there are 188 States Parties to the CWC. Two signatory states have not yet ratified the Convention, Israel and Myanmar (Burma), and only five countries have not signed the Convention: Angola, North Korea, Egypt, Somalia, and Syria. In 2009, three countries became States Parties. One of which was Iraq, on February 12, 2009.

In November 2007, the Eleventh Session of the CSP extended a number of intermediate deadlines for the destruction of Category 1 CW stockpiles in the United States, Russia, Libya, and India. The States Parties reaffirmed these Eleventh Session decisions at the Second Review Conference (RevCon), held from April 7-18, 2008. They also extended the deadline for 100 percent destruction to 2012 for all States Parties. Those states with large CW stockpiles, such as the United States and Russia, are expected to request a further extension. In the Department of Defense Appropriations Act of 2008, the U.S. Congress mandated that the U.S. CW stockpile be destroyed no later than December 31, 2017.

The Fourteenth Session of the CSP met from November 30 – December 4, 2009, in The Hague. At this meeting, the decisions of the States Parties included:

• accepting Libya’s request to extend its deadline for destroying all Category 1 chemical weapons stockpiles in Libya to May 15, 2011;

• appointing Mr. Ahmet Üzümcü as the Director-General of the OPCW from July 25, 2010 – July 24, 2014; and

• establishing guidelines for declaring low-concentration limits of Schedule 2a and 2a chemicals.

Destruction Status and Declarations

Three of the six CW possessor states have completely destroyed their CW stockpiles: Albania (July 2007); another State Party (July 2008); and India (March 2009). The remaining possessor states are Libya, Russia, and the United States.

As of January 2010, the United States has destroyed 67 percent of its stockpile. Three of the original nine CW storage facilities have completed their destruction activities: Johnston Atoll Chemical Agent Disposal System (JACADS) (completed in 2000); Aberdeen Chemical Agent Disposal Facility (ABCDF) (completed in 2006); and Newport Chemical Agent Disposal Facility (NECDF) (completed 2008).

Four of the remaining six declared U.S. CW storage facilities are at various stages of incinerating their CW stockpiles under the direction of the U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency (CMA).

• Pine Bluff Chemical Agent Disposal Facility (PBCDF), Arkansas: Incineration began in 2005. To date, 49 percent of the Pine Bluff stockpile has been destroyed. Destruction is projected to be complete by November 2011 (but may be finished earlier).The Pine Bluff Arsenal originally stored 3,850 tons of sarin, VX, and mustard agent, constituting 12.6 percent of the total U.S. stockpile.

• Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility (TOCDF), Utah: Incineration began in 1996. To date, 85 percent of the facility’s stockpile has been destroyed, including all munitions containing sarin and VX. Destruction is projected to be completed in the fall of 2011.The Deseret Chemical Depot in Utah stored 44 percent of the total U.S. stockpile, the Army’s single largest CW stockpile.

• Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility (UMCDF), Oregon: Incineration began in September 2004. To date, 41 percent of the Umatilla stockpile has been destroyed. All sarin and VX weapons have been eliminated, and incineration of mustard weapons is underway. Destruction operations are on track to be completed by early 2011. The Umatilla Chemical Depot stored sarin, VX, and mustard weapons, comprising 12 percent of the total U.S. stockpile.

• Anniston Chemical Agent Disposal Facility (ANCDF), Alabama: Incineration operations began in August 2003. To date, 62 percent of the Anniston stockpile has been destroyed. The facility began destroying mustard weapons in July 2009, and is on schedule to complete all destruction operations by the April 29, 2012 Convention deadline. The Anniston Army Depot stored sarin, VX, and mustard munitions, constituting seven percent of the U.S. CW stockpile.

The Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives Program (ACWA), headquartered at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, has two facilities that will use alternative methods of CW destruction. Operations have not yet begun, but construction of these two remaining CW destruction facilities is underway.

• Blue Grass Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant (BGCAPP), Kentucky: The Blue Grass Army Depot in stores 523 tons of VX, sarin, and mustard munitions. This constitutes less than two percent of the total U.S. CW stockpile. Construction of BGCAPP began in September 2009. In 2003, working in partnership with the local community, ACWA selected neutralization of chemical agents, followed by supercritical water oxidation (SCWO), as the destruction technology that will be used to destroy CW at BGCAPP. Current projections estimate destruction to be completed by 2020 or 2021, and for the facility to be dismantled by 2027.

• Pueblo Chemical Agent Destruction Pilot Plant (PCAPP), Colorado: The Pueblo Chemical Depot stores mustard agent munitions, which constitutes a little more than eight percent of the U.S. CW stockpile. Construction has begun on PCAPP as well as on a biotreatment facility that will break down the hydrolysate byproduct resulting from the neutralization process. Currently, CW destruction operations are scheduled to begin in January 2015, and to be completed by December 2017.

As of November 2009, Russia reported that it had destroyed 45 percent of its CW stockpile. This is approximately 15,000 metric tons of material from Russia’s original 40,000 ton stockpile. Libya expects to complete destruction of its CW stockpile by May 2011.

Inspection Status

As of January 31, 2010, worldwide, the OPCW has overseen the destruction of more than:

• 56.91 percent of the world’s declared stockpile of chemical agents (40,514MT of chemical agent out of a declared total of 71,194MT);



• 45.33 percent of the declared chemical munitions and containers (3.93 million munitions/containers out of a declared total of 8.67 million munitions/containers); and



• 100 percent inactivation of the 70 declared chemical weapons production facilities, with 43 destroyed and 19 converted to peaceful purposes.

The OPCW TS has completed 3,964 inspections as of January 31, 2010, at 2,212 sites (out of a total of 5,060 eligible declared sites) located in 81 countries. Details are provided in the chart below.