What are the CWC and OPCW?
The Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction (the Chemical Weapons Convention or CWC for short) was opened for signature in January 1993 after almost 20 years of exploratory talks and multilateral negotiations. It is the first treaty to verifiably ban a whole class of weapons of mass destruction. When it entered into force in April 1997, the CWC established a new international organization, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) based in The Hague to oversee its implementation.
The OPCW has around 500 members of staff, of whom about 200 are inspectors and verification experts. 183 countries are now members of the OPCW and they all have to declare whether they possess chemical weapons or production facilities, and industrial facilities working with certain listed chemicals. OPCW inspectors then visit these facilities to verify that the declarations are correct.
What is a Review Conference?
Like many other arms control treaties, the CWC provides for five-yearly Review Conferences (RevCons) to review the implementation of the treaty. Unlike the BWC, CTBT and the Mine Ban Convention, the CWC does not contain a separate article specifically covering the RevCon. Instead, CWC RevCons are characterized as “special sessions” of the OPCW’s main decision-making body, the Conference of the States Parties (CSP). Article VIII.22 of the CWC states:
22. The Conference shall not later than one year after the expiry of the fifth and the tenth year after the entry into force of this Convention, and at such other times within that time period as may be decided upon, convene in special sessions to undertake reviews of the operation of this Convention. Such reviews shall take into account any relevant scientific and technological developments. At intervals of five years thereafter, unless otherwise decided upon, further sessions of the Conference shall be convened with the same objective.
A CWC negotiator explains that:
It was understood that the reviews undertaken by these “special sessions” would complement the reviews undertaken by the “regular sessions” of the CSP, with the regular sessions of the CSP reviewing short-term operations, activities and developments (in particular, those aspects more relevant to the planning of the following year’s programme of work and budget), and the less frequent “special” (RevCon) sessions reviewing the various operations, activities and developments with a longer-term perspective, to provide guidance to OPCW activities of the following several years.” [Robert J Mathews, “The First Review Conference of the Chemical Weapons Convention: A Drafter’s Perspective”, in Ramesh Thakur and Ere Haru (eds.), The Chemical Weapons Convention: Implementation, Challenges and Opportunities, United Nations University Press, 2006, p. 45.
RevCons are therefore designed to both take stock of past activities and to set the agenda for the future. And they are specifically tasked to “take into account any relevant scientific and technological developments” in the rapidly developing world of chemistry and related sciences.
The First CWC Review Conference, 2003
Preparations for the First RevCon were carried out in a Open-Ended Working Group which first met in November 2001. However, its work was delayed and distracted by the focus on terrorism after 9/11, lengthy budget negotiations in 2002 and the replacement of the first OPCW Director-General, Jose Bustani. Rather than the article-by-article review traditional in other RevCons, the Working Group decided that the CWC RevCon would conduct a thematic review of the treaty, focusing on: implementation, destruction, non-proliferation, verification, assistance and international cooperation.
The First CWC Review Conference took place from 28 April – 9 May 2003 in The Hague and adopted a Political Declaration and a Report. The RevCon’s archived website containing all the official documents is available here. The RevCon was generally agreed to have been a success and laid the foundations for the activities of the OPCW since 2003. However, in the intervening five years, much of relevance to the CWC has happened and it is now time to “review the operation” of the CWC again.
Preparations for the Second Review Conference
In December 2005, the OPCW Executive Council decided to establish an Open-Ended Working Group on preparations for the Second RevCon. British Ambassador Lyn Parker was chosen as Chair of the Working Group, assisted by the ambassadors of Iran, Mexico, Russia and Sudan.
The Working Group held its first meeting on 7 July 2006 and by December 2007 it had held 15 meetings. From July 2006 until July 2007 it met almost every month and discussed thematic issues relating to the CWC. From October 2007, the Working Group has been discussing the draft report for the Second Review Conference and considering a paper from the Technical Secretariat on CWC implementation since the First RevCon. Over 15 national papers have also been submitted to the Working Group.
The Working Group has also consulted with outside organizations. In November 2006, the Working Group issued a call for written submissions. On 11 July 2007 the Group had a meeting with chemical industry representatives and one with NGOs and experts on 19 November 2007. The reports and papers submitted to the Group have been posted on the OPCW external server which is however, only accessible to national delegates to the OPCW.
From January 2008 the Working Group is intensifying its work with meetings almost every week. It is planning to complete the drafting process well in advance of the RevCon itself.
