Haiti ratifies the Chemical Weapons Convention

Haiti and adjacent States. Green denotes a State Party to the Chemical Weapons Convention. Yellow —the Bahamas and the Dominican Republic— denotes a State which has signed but not yet ratified the Convention. Red —Barbados— denotes a State which has neither signed nor acceded to the Convention.

The boundaries, names and designations that appear on this map do not imply official endorsement or acceptance by the OPCW.

The Republic of Haiti deposited its instrument of ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention with the Secretary-General of the United Nations on 22 February 2006. Thirty days after that date, on 24 March 2006, Haiti will become the 177th State Party to the Chemical Weapons Convention.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) implements the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and it is responsible for an Action Plan on the Universality of the CWC, which aims at acquiring the membership of every nation to the OPCW by 2007, to ensure the complete global ban on these weapons.

Haiti 's ratification of the CWC has confirmed the universal validity of this multilateral instrument, which prohibits the development, production, stockpiling, use or transfer of chemical weapons, and promotes collective security through the verified elimination of an entire category of weapons of mass destruction. Haiti will also be entitled to benefit from the OPCW's international cooperation and assistance programmes.

This decision by Haiti ensures that the vast majority of States in the Caribbean basin are now part of the Convention's arms control and disarmament regime. These developments are fully in conformity with the resolution adopted by the General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS) in June 2004 on the establishment of the Americas as a biological- and chemical-weapons-free region.

In addition, Haiti now joins the following OPCW Member States that are Members of the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM): Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago.

The Chemical Weapons Convention entered into force on 29 April 1997 . Adherence to the Convention contributes to global peace and security and its 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 all the remaining 17 States that have not yet ratified or acceded to the CWC to do so as soon as possible.

PR9 / 2006

Categories: Latin America and the Caribbean, Universality