The Hague, 13 July 2004

OPCW Director-General Attends African Union Summit

At the invitation of the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, H.E. Mr Alpha Oumar Konare, the Director General of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Mr Rogelio Pfirter, attended the Third Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from 6 to 8 July 2004.

In July 2002, the newly formed African Union adopted a Decision on the Implementation and Universality of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) at its inaugural Summit Meeting held in Durban, South Africa. Through that Decision, the Assembly of the African Union encourages the call to achieve the universality of the CWC in Africa and welcomes the effective implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention in Africa through sustained technical assistance from the Technical Secretariat of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
In the following year, in July 2003, OPCW Director-General, Mr Rogelio Pfirter, attended the African Union’s Summit in Maputo, Mozambique, to encourage African States not Party to the CWC to join the global chemical weapons ban swiftly. Since July 2003, five African States have joined the OPCW: Sao Tomé and Principe, Cape Verde, Libya, Chad and Rwanda. The OPCW now includes 41 African States.

At the moment, only twelve African States have not as yet joined the Convention. To retain the momentum of accessions and ratifications achieved following the 2003 Summit in Maputo, and to offer the Organisation’s support in the preparations for joining and implementing the CWC, Mr Pfirter held meetings with senior-level officials, representing African States that are not yet party to the CWC, including: the Egyptian Vice-Minister of African Affairs, H.E. Mr Ashraf Rashed; the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Guinea-Bisssau, H.E. Mr Soares Sambu; the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Liberia, H.E. Mr Thomas Yaya Nimley; and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Madagascar, H.E. Mr Marcel Ranjeva.

During the course of the Summit, Mr Pfirter also held substantive discussions with representatives of Member States, including the Secretary of the General People's Committee for Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, H.E. Abd al-Rahman Shalgam, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Cape Verde, H.E. Mr Victor Borges.

Note for Editors

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW, or the “Organisation”) is the treaty-implementing body for the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction (the “CWC”, or the “Convention”). The Convention aims to eliminate an entire category of weapons of mass destruction by prohibiting the development, production, acquisition, stockpiling, retention, transfer or use of chemical weapons by States Parties. States Parties, in turn, must take the steps necessary to enforce that prohibition in respect of persons (natural or legal) within their jurisdiction. All States Parties have agreed to chemically disarm by destroying any stockpiles of chemical weapons they may hold and any facilities which produced them, as well as any chemical weapons they abandoned elsewhere in the past. States Parties have also agreed to create a verification regime for certain toxic chemicals and their precursors (listed in Schedules 1, 2 and 3 in the Annex on Chemicals to the Convention) in order to ensure that such chemicals are only used for purposes not prohibited. A unique feature of the Convention is its incorporation of the “challenge inspection”, whereby any State Party in doubt about another State Party’s compliance can request the Director-General to send an inspection team. Under the Convention’s “challenge inspection” procedure, States Parties have committed themselves to the principle of “any time, anywhere” inspections with no right of refusal.

All States Parties to the Convention are automatically members of the OPCW. Established in 1997 upon entry into force of the Convention, the OPCW has its headquarters in The Hague, the Netherlands. The OPCW has three organs: its plenary organ, the Conference of the States Parties (the “Conference”); its executive organ, the Executive Council (the “Council”); and the Technical Secretariat (the “Secretariat”), which is headed by a Director-General.

States Parties declare to the OPCW the extent of specific activities which could pose a risk to the object and purpose of the Convention. These activities are subject to international verification and monitoring by the Secretariat, primarily through inspections, to ensure non-proliferation. With the aim of promoting transparency and confidence-building, declared information is shared among States Parties within the confines of the strict confidentiality regime provided for in the Convention. In parallel, implementation of the Convention must be carried out in a manner which avoids hampering the economic or technological development of States Parties, and international cooperation in the field of chemical activities for purposes not prohibited under this Convention. States Parties also benefit from the right to request, through the OPCW, assistance and protection against the use or threat of use of chemical weapons.

The Convention enjoys wide adherence: as of the most recent ratification on 20 June 2004, the Convention comprises 164 States Parties and 18 Signatory States. Only 12 States have neither signed nor ratified the convention

The fundamental obligations of States Parties to the Convention are never under any circumstances to develop, produce, otherwise acquire, stockpile or retain chemical weapons, or transfer, directly or indirectly, chemical weapons to anyone; or to use chemical weapons; or to engage in any military preparations to use chemical weapons; or to assist, encourage or induce, in any way, anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a State Party under this Convention.

Each State Party undertakes to destroy all chemical weapons and all chemical weapons production facilities that it owns or possesses or that are located in any place under its jurisdiction and control, as well as to destroy all chemical weapons that it abandoned on the territory of another State Party. Finally, each State Party undertakes not to use riot control agents as a method of warfare.

The OPCW is mandated to conduct international verification activities and work in the field of international cooperation, to deliver assistance and protection against chemical weapons, and to provide a forum for consultation and cooperation among its Member States.

The verification regime is set out in great detail in the Convention. The regime focuses on obtaining relevant facts in order to build confidence among States Parties, and to discover any violations. The CWC requires declarations from States Parties relating to any chemical weapons or related facilities that they have or have had since 1946, as well as with respect to facilities relating to the chemicals listed in the three Schedules to the Convention and to unscheduled discrete organic chemicals.1 The CWC specifies the threshold amounts above which declarations are required for particular types of chemicals. These declarations are verified through routine inspections of the declared facilities. The Convention also provides procedures for ascertaining relevant facts in cases of suspected non-compliance (including the use of challenge inspections), and for investigations of cases of the alleged use of chemical weapons.

Inspections are carried out by members of the Secretariat’s Inspectorate Division. The inspectors, drawn from all regions and holding the citizenship of a State Party, are experts in their field. As international civil servants, their responsibilities are not national but exclusively international, and they regulate their conduct solely with the interests of the Organisation in view, subject to the authority of the Director General.

The results of routine inspections are reported to the Director-General in the form of a final inspection report. If the report contains any uncertainties that cannot be removed through consultation with the inspected State Party, the Convention requires that the Director-General inform the Council of the results of the inspection. In the case of a challenge inspection, the Director-General must always submit the report to the Council and to all States Parties. If the Organisation conducts an investigation of alleged use, the Director-General must submit both the preliminary and final reports of the inspection team to the Council. The Council will then evaluate the information provided in the reports and make recommendations to the Conference on the measures, if any, to be taken.