Foreword
Declaration Handbook 2002 for the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction

The Declaration Handbook has been produced to meet the need for a comprehensive revision of the declaration forms which have been widely used by States Parties and the Secretariat since the entry into force of the Convention on 29 April 1997. This publication, which updates the previous version of the declaration handbook, issued in November 2000, aims to continue providing simple and clear guidance for the preparation of the declarations of the States Parties in accordance with the requirements of the Convention.

The Declaration Handbook incorporates the declaration requirements of the Convention and all relevant decisions and understandings in relation to such requirements agreed upon by the Conference of the States Parties since entry into force.

The Declaration Handbook is not a binding document. This compendium is rather a work in progress which aims to compile and present, in a concise form, the declaration requirements. Should a situation arise in which the content of this handbook is called into question, the relevant provisions of the Convention or decisions of the OPCW policy making organs shall prevail.

Although each State Party is free to determine whether to utilise this handbook, Member States of the Organisation are strongly encouraged to make extensive use of it. It is difficult to overstate the advantages of a common system for the provision of declarations and other verification related information for the whole Organisation. The Declaration Handbook aims to facilitate this process by providing a uniform basis for the preparation and provision of declarations by all States Parties. The universal submission of uniform declarations will further improve the efficiency of the processing of declaration-related information, and will provide additional benefits for the planning and implementation of the Organisation’s verification regime.

As a part of this handbook, the Secretariat is adding the latest version of an electronic data transmission standard (Common Transmission File Structure or CTFS in short), which was prepared with the help of a number of state parties. I invite State Parties to evaluate the convenience to submit their declarations electronically using this structure. Although the hard copy will continue being considered as the valid document, the use of this standard will significantly reduce the time required to process declarations. It further will eliminate the possibility of clerical errors in the different steps of the process because the generator, the State Party itself, loads the data. This will improve the quality of communication between the Secretariat and the States Parties and increase the level of protection of the data.

I wish to thank the representatives of Member States and the staff members of the Secretariat who have contributed to the development of this handbook, or who have provided so many valuable comments. I trust that our shared experience of using the Declaration Handbook will further enhance the co-operation between States Parties and the Secretariat.

Carlos Hugo Trentádue
Acting Director of Verification

Changes introduced in Declarations Handbook Version 2002

1. Smaller typographical corrections were made on the Table of Contents, the main text of Section A, Section B - Form 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, 2.6, 3.3, 3.5 Section C - Attachment I and II to C Forms;

2. A question was deleted from Section B - Form 3.2, which was not required by the Convention in the context of declaration of Schedule 3 plant sites;

3. The "B" forms of Section B has been modified to not request low concentration limit information on chemicals which are covered by decision C-V/DEC.19 dated 19 May 2000;

4. Decision EC-30/DEC.14 dated 13 September 2002 on export/import of scheduled chemicals was incorporated into the main text of Section B;

5. Form 4.1 in Section B was modified to let States Parties specify more precisely the way they intend the Secretariat handle the information declared; the main text of Section B was also amended to explain in detail the improvements introduced in the declaration of "Other Chemical Production Facilities";

6. Supplement to Form A-2 in Section A has been re-worded to reflect more precisely the requirements of the Convention.