Although the OPCW is not an anti-terrorism institution, since 9/11 the States Parties have encouraged the organization to support national and international efforts to deny terrorists access to chemical weapons. The OPCW runs an Open-Ended Working Group on Terrorism and tries to share national expertise through other training, workshops, and other outreach efforts. But the OPCW lacks a program like the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, which directly addresses WMD terrorist threats.
The OPCW has focused on eliminating existing military stockpiles and facilities while devoting insufficient resources to monitoring civilian chemical facilities. These so-called other chemical production facilities (OCPFs) can produce chemical agents, but many developing countries in Asia, where many OCPFs can be found, resist the burden of more inspections or regulations. The global migration of chemical manufacturing from Western developed nations to developing countries with weaker national regulations and export controls complicates CWC enforcement.
Furthermore, the Convention must be modernized to keep pace with the many scientific and technological developments that are sweeping through the global chemical sector, including the use of multi-purpose chemical facilities that can quickly alter the products they manufacture, allowing rapid “break out” capacities, as well as the spread of chemical production plants to many more countries. Progress in nanotechnology and bio-technology also creates both new methods of making chemical weapons as well as new means of using them.
In addition, the advent of micro-reactors could considerably decrease the time needed to manufacture existing or create entirely novel toxic compounds. If used to make weapons, micro-reactors and other new chemical production or chemical plant construction might not exhibit the traditional signatures, such as large pollution emissions, that intelligence services employ to detect chemical weapons threats.
The CWC will hold its third review conference in April. This occasion will provide an opportunity to upgrade the convention to surmount these and other challenges. Asian states can play a major role in helping this modernization and reinforcement process. For example, they can stockpile the equipment a country suffering a chemical attack would need to recover from a major incident. Many countries that have pledged to render assistance to a country suffering from a chemical incident have antiquated equipment and lack means to transport their aid.
Asian countries can provide the OPCW with more resources to monitor the possible manufacturing and clandestine trafficking of chemical weapons. The OPCW, which has had zero-growth budgets since 2006 that have barely matched the nominal inflation rate, needs more resources to hire additional people and buy new equipment to respond to the world’s increasingly large, diverse, dispersed, and sophisticated commercial chemical industry.
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denis the menace
There is a TON of evidence available on the Internet pointing to deep Amerikan complicity in the supply of chemical substances to Iraq but this information has been suppressed and censored by TheDiplomat. Speaks huge volumes about the lack of moral integrity about those claiming their right to hold the moral high ground and lecture other people. Man, what is the world coming to ?
Kanes
Some countries may need them for a MAD (mutually assisted destruction) defence. National security comes first for all countries, east or west.
ram
what about india
Washington’s Double Standards
Why does Western writers like to focus on Asia and not Europe and North America and Israel? As though they have no chemical weapons? Or the capacity to rapidly produce it when the a decision is made to make it? Which is just as culpable as having stockpiles of the chemicals itself. Why are the same standards not applied to the West?
The West are like the policeman who insisted on charging a woman reading a book in the middle of a lake on the basis that her boat had all the necessary equipment to enable her to conduct illegal fishing and that she could do it any second he was gone. The woman countered with a threat to sue the policeman for sexual harassment. "Why? Asked the shocked policeman. "I have not even thought nor entertained such an action". "Yeah," says the woman. "But you have all the necessary equipment to do it any second you want".
Kangmin Zheng
@Washington’s Double Standards,
The obvious double standards are CCP wants to bring Senkaku to UN Court but refuses to do the same for South China Sea.
Diverting Issue As usual
What has Senkakus got to do with what was commented, you bl**dy CIA troll? When rational and good points arremade, your standard tactic is to divert the issue and take potshots at your target. What a d*ckhead! Get an honest job, bud.
American Patriot
@ wumao trolls
There exists a double standard because the USA has been well-established for 70 years as the world's policeman and as such, it is our responsibility to ensure that chemical weapons do not get into the hands of irrational actors such as Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Without the US security umbrella the proliferation of WMD's would be much greater and pose a huge threat to the continuation of the current international order. It's a tough job to carry out but you should be thanking America for taking on such a noble role.
denis
There is a ton of irrefutable evidence on the Internet pointing to deep Amerikan complicity in the supply and usage of chemical weapons by Iraq yet this information has been deliberately and severely suppressed by the editors of TheDilomat. Speaks volumes about the lack of integrity here.zo
As for why this article in particular focuses on the Asia Pacific, I draw your attention to the fact that “The Diplomat is the premier international current-affairs magazine for the Asia-Pacific region” (from the ‘About’ page).
VF89
You don't wanna know what kind of ingredients they used to make food from meat bun to 'fresh' egg.
Lnrds
The only chemicals I see in Asia is China's pollution and milk scandal.