Section A - General Introduction

1. Purpose of this Declaration Handbook

2. The primary users of this Declaration Handbook

3. What States Parties are to do

4. How each State Party prepares declarations

Annex A: Forms for general reference data and primary declaration identification

1. Purpose of this Declaration Handbook

The purpose of this handbook is to provide the National Authorities of States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) with detailed explanations on declaration requirements as well as with instructions for the completion of initial, annual and other declarations that are required under the different Articles of the CWC and the corresponding Parts of its Verification Annex.  This Declaration Handbook contains different sections.  Section A provides a general introduction.  Sections B through J relate to specific declaration requirements of the CWC.  They contain summaries of the declaration requirements and, as annexes, the declaration forms to be used.  Each section of this Declaration Handbook contains instructions for the completion of these declaration forms, together with a number of definitions and specific explanations that are relevant to the completion of each section.  Furthermore this handbook provides a series of appendices containing all codes and code descriptions that are to be used to complete the declaration forms.  

2. The primary users of this Declaration Handbook

In accordance with the CWC, each State Party is required to make initial, annual and other declarations.  The primary users of this handbook will be personnel from the National Authorities of States Parties.  Each National Authority is requested to provide general reference information on the National Authority/organisation and, on a voluntary basis, information on individual contacts within the National Authority by using Form A-1 (contained in Annex A of Section A).

3. What States Parties are to do

3.1 Declaration requirements

The CWC stipulates a number of declaration requirements:

The above declaration requirements are covered by different sections of this handbook, as set out below:

• Section B refers to Schedule 2 and 3 chemical and facilities related to such chemicals and other chemical production facilities;
• Section C refers to Schedule 1 chemicals and facilities related to such chemicals;
• Section D refers to chemical weapons that a State Party owns or possesses or which are located in any place under its jurisdiction or control or to any CW on its territory that are owned and possessed by another State or located in any place under the jurisdiction or control of another State as well as transfers and receipts of chemical weapons since 1 January 1946;
• Sections E and F refer to old chemical weapons located on the territory of a State Party;
• Section G refers to abandoned chemical weapons located on the territory of a State Party or that the State Party has abandoned on the territory of other States;
• Section H refers to chemical weapons destruction facilities;
• Section I refers to chemical weapons production facilities that a State Party owns or possesses or that are, or have been, located on its territory or in any other place under its jurisdiction or control at any time since 1 January 1946, as well as any transfers of chemical weapons production equipment since 1 January 1946;
• Section J refers to other chemical weapons related facilities; and
• Section K refers to riot control agents.

3.2 Submission of initial declarations

In accordance with paragraph 1 of Article III of the CWC, each State Party shall make initial declarations with respect to chemical weapons, old and abandoned chemical weapons, chemical weapons related facilities and riot control agents. The declarations are referred to in Sections D, E, F, G, H, I, J and K, and shall be submitted not later than 30 days after the CWC enters into force for the State Party. Each State Party is required to make these initial declarations.

In accordance with paragraph 7 of Article VI, each State Party shall make an initial declaration with respect to relevant chemicals and facilities. These declarations are referred to in Sections B and C and shall be submitted not later than 30 days after the CWC enters into force for the State Party.

In order to meet these initial declaration requirements, each State Party is requested to complete declaration form A-2 and its supplement (contained in Annex A of Section A).

For annual and other declarations, please follow the relevant instructions provided in different sections of this handbook.

4. How each State Party prepares declarations

4.1 Declaration forms

Each State Party is requested to fill out the declaration forms contained in the different sections of this handbook and to submit them to the Secretariat in hard copy and/or electronic form. Templates of different declaration forms can be obtained from the Secretariat upon request.

For declarations submitted in electronic form States Parties are requested to submit electronic files containing declaration data in structured form as defined in the data dictionary developed for electronic transmission of declaration data between National Authorities and the Secretariat. These data dictionaries are contained in Appendix 9 of this Declaration Handbook.

4.2 Transmission of declaration forms

4.2.1. Generic requirements

a) The documents should be sent to the following address: Declarations Branch, Johan de Wittlaan 32, 2517 JR The Hague, The Netherlands.

b) The documents should be submitted in a sealed envelope.

c) On the envelope, the name and the address of the sender should be clearly identified.

d) On the envelope, the reference number of the sender should be identified.

e) Each page of the document has to be numbered page n of n pages (eg.  Page 1 of 20).

f) Modifications to a document should be sent by sending the whole new page which has to replace the old one.  If more than one page replaces the original one page, the new pages should be subnumbered (for example, if page 45 is to be replaced by two other pages, the two new pages should be numbered as 45/a and 45/b).

g) Each attachment should be uniquely identified in the declaration. The identification should contain at least the country code and name, the date of the submission, the section of the declaration (A-K) and the code of the plant site to which the attachment relates.

h) The date should read (ccyy-mm-dd) eg. (1997-12-01)

4.2.2. Submission of hard copies

a) The documents should be printed on single-sided, A4 or US letter size paper.  For special purposes (maps, pictures etc.) where it is not possible or practical to submit documents in this size, other sizes will be accepted, but the sender should try to keep the number of such pages to a minimum.

b) The documents should be printed on paper weighing between 60g/m2 and 200 g/m2 (normal photocopying paper is about 80 g/m2).

c) The documents should be printed on a paper and with an ink which makes possible the scanning of the document in acceptable quality with a normal, black and white flat-bed scanner, (If possible, use white paper with black ink and avoid any colours, and please do not use red paper under any circumstances).

d) Leave a two centimetre margin on each side of each page.

e) Do not submit pages in a way which might make scanning difficult, and in particular do not staple the pages. Please use paper clips.

f) Do not book bind the pages (ring binding is acceptable).

g) Individual sections of the declarations should be clearly identified (for example, if you use coloured separator pages, these pages are not part of the declaration, and the information written on them will accordingly not be processed).

h) Pages relating to the same site should be placed next to each other.

i) Pages containing national aggregates should be placed next to each other.

4.2.3. Submission of electronic storage media

a) The OPCW is capable of processing the following electronic storage media:

- DOS 3.3 compatible formatted, 3.1/2" floppy disks

- CD-ROMs  (ISO/IEC 10149)

b) To avoid delays in processing caused by media damage, always submit two copies.

c) Please mark the primary medium with “A”, and the secondary medium with “B”.  Upon receipt, the Secretariat will try to process the primary medium.  If it is damaged, the secondary medium will be used.  The Secretariat will not check whether the content of the two media is identical.

4.2.4. Word processor files

a)         The OPCW is capable of accepting word processor files prepared in Microsoft Word for Windows 2.0, 6.0 or 7.0 format.

·           The page size of the document should be set to A4 or US letter size paper.

·           The document should use Arial, Times New Roman or Courier New fonts, with at least font size 10.

·           All the different font types should be embedded in the document.

b)         The OPCW is capable of accepting word processor files prepared in Microsoft Excel 3.0, 4.0 or 7.0 format.

·           The page size of the document should be set to A4 or US letter size paper.

·           The document should use Arial, Times New Roman or Courier New fonts, with at least font size 10.

·           All the different font types should be embedded in the document.

4.2.5.  Structured information

See the Common Transmission File Structure Documentation 1.00.

4.3 Code descriptions for declarations

States Parties are requested to use code descriptions for specific data items in different declaration forms.  All these code descriptions are attached to this Declaration Handbook as appendices.  Whenever codes should be used, instructions for their use are provided in the declaration forms. 

Annex A of Section A
Forms for general reference data and primary declaration identification

Declaration Forms