180 Countries Now Uphold the Chemical Weapons Ban

The Central African Republic will become the 180th State Party to the Chemical Weapons Convention on 20th October 2006. This will happen 30 days after it deposited its instrument of ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention with the Secretary-General of the United Nations on 20 September 2006.

The Convention now covers 98% of the global population. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) implements the Chemical Weapons Convention. To ensure a complete, global ban on these weapons, the OPCW is pursuing an Action Plan to acquire every State’s membership in the Organisation by 2007. Since the Action Plan was launched in October 2003, ten African States have become OPCW Member States: Libya, Chad, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Madagascar, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Liberia, the Comoros and the Central African Republic. With the Central African Republic’s ratification of the Convention, 48 of the 53 African States are OPCW Member States.

The Central African Republic’s ratification of the Convention confirms the global validity of this multilateral instrument, which prohibits the development, production, stockpiling, use or transfer of chemical weapons, and promotes international security through the verified elimination of an entire category of weapons of mass destruction. This most recent ratification also meets the milestone to acquire 180 States Parties to the Convention by December 2006, which the Tenth Conference of the CWC States Parties had set in December 2005.

As an OPCW Member State, the Central African Republic will benefit from the OPCW’s international cooperation and assistance programmes that have provided specialized training and support to over 5,500 national implementers of the CWC around the world. This support programme enhances the national capacity to implement the Convention and to engage in the peaceful uses of chemistry.

The Chemical Weapons Convention entered into force on 29 April 1997. Adherence to the Convention contributes to global peace and security by verifiably eliminating an entire category of weapons of mass destruction within agreed timelines. The Convention’s universal and effective implementation provides concrete benefits for all OPCW Member States. The Convention's implementing agency, the OPCW, aims to achieve four principal objectives: to eliminate chemical weapons; to prevent their re-emergence and spread; to provide assistance and protection upon any State Party’s request in the event of the use, or threat of use, of chemical weapons; and to promote international cooperation in the peaceful use of chemistry.

The OPCW urges the remaining six Signatory States that have not yet ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention and the remaining nine States that have not acceded to the treaty to do so as soon as possible.

PR63 / 2006

Categories: Universality