The Hague, April 2003

Open Forum on the Chemical Weapons Convention.
“ Challenges to the Chemical Weapons Ban”
The Peace Palace, The Hague, 1 May 2003

The Technical Secretariat of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons would like to announce an Open Forum on the Chemical Weapons Convention, “Challenges to the Chemical Weapons Ban”.

The Open Forum will begin at 14.00h on 1 May 2003 at the Peace Palace, located at Carnegieplein 2, 2517 KJ The Hague, the Netherlands. Should you wish to be invited to the Open Forum, please inform the Media and Public Affairs Branch of the OPCW by fax, + 31 (0) 70 416 3044, or by email, media@opcw.org. Please present this invitation, upon arrival at the Peace Palace, to be admitted to the Forum.

The Open Forum draws together prominent academicians, experts dealing with international law, the medical effects of weapons, chemical demilitarisation and chemical industry, as well as representatives of international organisations and delegations to the OPCW, all concerned with ensuring the effectiveness of the ban on the development, production, stockpiling, use or transfer of chemical weapons, in addition to the destruction and complete elimination of an entire class of weapons of mass destruction.

The topics to be discussed include:

• the challenges presented by the destruction of the global stockpiles of chemical weapons, now numbering more than 70,000 metric tons of bulk agent, munitions and containers;
• the implementation of national legislation to allow for the prosecution and penalisation of any breach of the Convention by any individual or group;
• the advances in science and technology, which impact the effective implementation of the chemical weapons ban;
• the views of global chemical industry on the Convention’s strict regime of verification of compliance; and
• the implications of the use of “incapacitants”, either in law enforcement or in warfare, on both the Convention and international humanitarian law.

Agenda of the Open Forum on the Chemical Weapons Convention

The Open Forum will be held on 1 May 2003 at the Peace Palace in The Hague.
Address: Carnegieplein 2, 2517KJ The Hague, the Netherlands.

14:00h OPENING REMARKS
OPCW Director-General, Rogelio Pfirter

KEYNOTE ADDRESS
H.E. Adolf Ritter von Wagner

FORUM COMMENCES
Moderator: Ian Kenyon, Mountbatten Centre for International Studies

PRESENTATIONS ON
Implementation of the Chemical Weapons Ban

a) Chemical Weapons Destruction

Chemical Weapons Destruction in the Russian Federation:
Dr Sergej Baranowsky, President, Green Cross Russia
Chemical Weapons Destruction in the United States:
Paul Walker, Global Green/USA

b) Status of Implementing Legislation

Nicholas Sims, London School of Economics

c) Article VI Issues: Activities Not Prohibited

International Council of Chemical Associations, Presenter to be announced

d) Advances in Science & Technology

International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, Presenter to be announced
Graham Pearson, Department of Peace Studies at Bradford University

Questions & Answers

COFFEE BREAK

PANEL DISCUSSION
The Chemical Weapons Ban and the Use of Incapacitants in Warfare and Law Enforcement

a) General Purpose Criterion
Daniel Feakes, Harvard Sussex Program
b) Law Enforcement
David Fidler, Federation of American Scientists
c) Riot Control Agents
Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, Federation of American Scientists
d) Incapacitants
Malcolm Dando, Department of Peace Studies at Bradford University
e) Implications for International Humanitarian Law
Robin Coupland, International Committee of the Red Cross
Questions & Answers