The Hague, 26 May 2004

Saint Kitts and Nevis Joins the Chemical Weapons Convention

On 21 May 2004, Saint Kitts and Nevis deposited its instrument of ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) with the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the Depositary of the CWC. On 20 June 2004, thirty days after the deposit of its instrument of ratification, Saint Kitts and Nevis will become both the 164th State Party to the Convention and a Member State of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

Every month during the past year, a new Member State has joined the Organisation. Since May 2003, 13 new Member States have permanently renounced chemical weapons, including: Timor Leste, Tonga, Sao Tome and Principe, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Cape Verde, Belize, Libya, Tuvalu, Chad, Rwanda, the Marshall Islands and Saint Kitts and Nevis.

The CWC is now the law of the land in almost every State in North and South America. Saint Kitts and Nevis’ ratification of the Convention brings the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States ever closer to universality.

This latest ratification is timely, since the Committee on Hemispheric Security of the Organisation of American States is currently considering a draft resolution on "The Americas as a Biological- and Chemical-Weapons-Free Region”.

OPCW Director-General, Mr Rogelio Pfirter, addressed the Committee on Hemispheric Security in Washington D.C. on 27 April 2004, to encourage all States not party to the CWC in Latin America and the Caribbean to take the sovereign decision necessary to prohibit these terrible weapons of mass destruction as soon as possible.

Universal adherence to the CWC and the swift and permanent elimination of chemical weapons are the key factors in preventing the spread of these dangerous weapons of mass destruction and their precursors to non-state actors. In response to the increasing concerns about the terrorist use of weapons of mass destruction, the United Nations’ Security Council adopted Resolution 1540, obliging all countries in the world under law, including States that have not yet joined the CWC, to implement the CWC’s non-proliferation provisions.