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After 24 Years — a Chemical Treaty to Make World Safer

by Stephen Court
AM ER 24 years of negotiations a final draft of a new treaty to ban chemical weapons has been agreed by the United Nations Committee on Chemical Weapons tn Geneva.
The draft is being pul before the committee's umbrella organisation, the UN Conference on disarmament, and will be presented to the General Assembly later this year.
The treaty is expected to come Into force by early 1993. with a signing ceremony in Paris. At least 65 signatories are needed for the treaty to come into force. Already 50 countries have indicated their willingness to sign.
The new treaty will ban the development, production, stockpiling and use of toxic weapons and require destruction of all stockpiles arid production facilities within ten years of coming Into force. It Is the most ambitious multinational accord ever attempted.
The 39-nation Conference on Disarmament began In 1968. Its aim was to update the 1925 Geneva Protocol on chemical weapons, which had been agreed in the aftermath of World War One. when tens of thousands of soldiers had been killed or maimed in poison gas attacks.
The Protocol banned the use of chemical weapons in war. But It did not go any further than that. The Conference on Disarmament was given the task of working out the formula for a global ban on toxic weapons.
For many years, the negotiations were bogged down by the Cold War. while the superpow-
ers and a number of develop fng countries built up iheir stockpiles.
It was concern over the use of poison gases In the )98Os by Iraq that finally got the talks moving. Baghdad used chemical weapons in its war with Iran, as well as again si its own civilian Kurdish population.
In 1990, the.United States and the former Soviet Union agreed to begin destroying their own stockpiles, which together amounted to at least 80,000 tonnes. These were by far the largest arsenals in the world, and easily outstripped Iraq's pre-Gulf war tonnage.
The efforts by the UN to reach a wide-ranging solution to the menace of chemical Weapons received further impetus following the threats by Iraq to use such arms during the Gulf War.
Out in the Saudi Arabian desert, soldiers carried protective breathing apparatus and clothing in the event of a toxic weapon attack. They were also provided with drugs to take to fight the potcntlally-lethal poisons.
In a horrible Irony that evoked the use of gas against Jews by Nazi Germany, it was feared that Iraqi Scud missiles targeted on Israel might contain chemicals which had been manufactured by Iraq with the assistance of German scien-
tists.
The threats by Baghdad did not materialise But the Gulf war highlighted the ease with which chemical weapons could be made. It is believed that around 20 countries, including China. Israel. Egypt and Pakistan. have such weapons.
Unlike the production of nuclear weapons, plants producing chemical weapons can be difficult to detect. Some of the materials used in producing the weapons, such as pesticides. have non-milttary usage.
The centra] problem of the treaty will be persuading the countries which have chemical weapons — or the desire to acquire them — to sign the treaty, and to see that the treaty is adhered to.
The UN agency which will police the treaty, the International Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (IOPCW). will be based in The Hague. It was established in June.
The IOPCW, a sister organisation of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, will have a staff of 1.500. The Prins Maurlts laboratory. three miles outside The Hague, will be used by the IOPCW to monitor suspected
chemical weapons samples.
The main work of the IOIX2W will be to inspect and search military installations, as well as civilian chemical plants making chemicals for peaceful uses, such as fertilizers.
Under the treaty, up to five days' warning will be given of an inspection. The treaty will also enforce the cleaning up of abandoned chemical weapons.
The IOPCW will need to work closely with the Viennabased UN Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), which assists in the development of the chemical indus-
tries in the Third World.
One potential stumbling-block will be the way inspections are carried out. In 1984, George Bush, then US Vice-President, proposed to the disarmament conference that weapons Inspectors should be allowed to go anywhere at any time, with treaty signatories not being allowed to refuse access.
Pressure from developing countries over the sensitive Issue of potentially intrusive inspectors. allowed chemically-unrelated secrets lo be protected.
A group of 14 developing countries. Including China, Pakistan and Iran, has been leading the opposition to the current draft treaty, saying It still wants changes to the text.
As well as worries about safeguarding Its secrets, they fear that the treaty will make legitimate chemicals more difficult for developing countries to obtain.
Pakistani Ambassador Ahmad Kamal said: "We are trying to achieve consensus on the draft convention. The objective is more Important than any artificial deadlines."
The German chairman of the weapons committee. Ambassador Adolf Ritter von Wagner. has said that negotiations on substances are now closed.
— GEMINI NEWS
STEPHEN COURT is a freelance Journalist and broadcaster. working mainly for the BBC World Service.