The Hague, 1 October 2004

Sierra Leone Joins the Chemical Weapons Convention

Sierra Leone deposited its instrument of ratification to the Chemical Weapons Convention with the Secretary-General of the United Nations on 30 September 2004. Thirty days after that date, on 30 October 2004, Sierra Leone will become the 166th State Party to the Convention.

In the past year, thirteen States have ratified or acceded to the Convention to join as Member States the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW): Sao Tome and Principe, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Cape Verde, Belize, the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Tuvalu, Chad, Rwanda, the Marshall Islands, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Solomon Islands and Sierra Leone.

The OPCW seeks to achieve universal adherence to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). In the pursuit of universality in Africa, workshops on universality were conducted in Africa by the OPCW in collaboration with the African Union and Member States within the region. Sierra Leone was one of the participating States that had expressed its willingness to ratify the CWC.

With Sierra Leone’s recent ratification of the CWC, only eleven States in the region remain outside the Treaty and they are encouraged to join the CWC.

Adherence to the CWC also provides concrete benefits for all OPCW Member States. The OPCW supports programmes to enhance Member States’ national capacity to implement the Convention, to protect civilian populations against chemical weapons and to facilitate the international cooperation among States Parties to promote the peaceful uses of chemistry.

The Chemical Weapons Convention entered into force on 29 April 1997. The Convention's implementing agency, the OPCW, aims to achieve four principal objectives: to eliminate chemical weapons and to prevent their re-emergence, to implement a credible non-proliferation regime, to provide international assistance and protection in the event of the use, or threat of use, of chemical weapons, and to promote international cooperation in the peaceful use of chemistry.