The Hague, 17 October 1997

Director-General Addresses the First Committee of the United Nations General Assembly

The Director-General of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Mr José M. Bustani, addressed the First Committee of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on 16 October. Mr Bustani pointed to the impressive membership of the OPCW, 100 states having ratified and 67 states having signed the Convention. He also stated that the first six months of operations of the Organisation, which was established at entry into force of the Chemical Weapons Convention on 29 April, had been very successful. As of 30 September, the Secretariat had received initial declarations from 63 States Parties. Altogether, 80 initial inspections of both chemical weapons related facilities and facilities producing Schedule 1 chemicals had been conducted on the territory of 17 states.

Mr Bustani stressed that universality of membership is crucial to the success of the Organisation. He expressed concern that, despite the fact that the Convention captured the overwhelming majority of the world's chemical industry, and that four of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council were States Parties, some key states were still not within its regime. In particular, the importance of the presence of the Russian Federation, as the largest declared possessor of chemical weapons and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, was reiterated. Mr Bustani explained that ratification by the Russian Federation was also essential for achieving the Organisation's goal of eliminating all chemical weapons and related productions in the world within a specific time frame. Mr Bustani explained that efforts were on- going to encourage states that have not yet signed the Convention to do so as soon as possible, and stressed the political, economic and technological benefits of joining. With the increasing number of States Parties, chemical weapons would be progressively delegitimised and, by the same token, political constraints on their development would be substantially reinforced.

The Director-General concluded by stating that the first six months in the life of the Chemical Weapons Convention have shown that a multilateral disarmament agreement can, and in fact is, working - something which constitutes a major boost for similar efforts in other fields of disarmament.