Declaration Requirements for Scheduled Chemicals

Schedule 1 Chemicals

Any transfer of a Schedule 1 chemical from one State Party to another is required to be notified by both States Parties to the Technical Secretariat of the OPCW, at least 30 days before the planned transfer; except for quantities of 5 milligrams or less of the Schedule 1 chemical Saxitoxin, if the transfer is for medical/diagnostic purposes. In such case, the notification shall be made by the time of the transfer.

Every year, each State Party has to make a detailed annual declaration on transfers during the previous year. This declaration shall be submitted no later than 90 days after the end of that year and shall include specific information on each Schedule 1 chemical that has been transferred. 

In relation to transfers of Schedule 1 chemicals to or from States not Party, the First Review Conference recalled the prohibitions on any such transfers of Schedule 1 chemicals.

Schedule 2 and 3 Chemicals

States Parties are required to make initial and annual declarations on aggregate national data for the previous calendar year on:

  • The quantities of each Schedule 2 chemical produced, processed, consumed, imported and exported;
  • The quantities of each Schedule 3 chemical produced, imported and exported;
  • A quantitative specification of import and export for each country and chemical involved. In relation to transfers of scheduled chemicals to or from States not Party, the First Review Conference recalled the prohibitions, since 29 April 2000, of Schedule 2 chemicals and urged all States Parties to fully and effectively implement these prohibitions, including by enacting the necessary legislation, and to share experiences about the implementation of these provisions.
  • Five years after the entry into force of the Convention (after 29 April 2003), the need to establish other measures regarding transfers of Schedule 3 chemicals to States not Party was reviewed. The First Review Conference requested the Council to continue working towards an early resolution of these issues, and to submit a recommendation on this matter to the next regular session of the Conference.

Discrete Organic Chemicals (DOC)

No restrictions or reporting requirements on transfers of these chemicals to/from States not Party have been established in the Convention. 

States Parties are required to provide in their initial declarations a list of all plant sites that produced by synthesis during the previous calendar year more than 200 tonnes of unscheduled discrete organic chemicals; or that comprise one or more plants which produced by synthesis more than 30 tonnes of an unscheduled discrete organic chemical containing the elements phosphorus, sulfur, or fluorine.

Each State Party shall provide annually the information necessary to update the list.

Aggregate National Data

Excerpt from “Guidelines Regarding Declarations of Aggregate National Data for Schedule 2 Chemical Production, Processing, Consumption, Import and Export and Schedule 3 Import and Export”, Seventh Session of the Conference of the States Parties, C-7/DEC. 14, 10 October 2002.

“The Conference of the States Parties, (…) Having considered that a standardised approach to declaration obligations is necessary for National Authorities to report Aggregate National Data (AND) and relevant plant site import and export data in a uniform and harmonised manner, and to provide more meaningful and comparable information for use by the Organisation in illustrating normal patterns of trade, and in identifying any trends important to the object and purpose of the Convention;

(…)  Decides on the following:

  1. that import and export data aggregated by each State Party in fulfilment of the declaration obligations of paragraph 1 of Part VII and paragraph 1 of Part VIII of the Verification Annex shall include activity by natural and legal persons transferring a declarable chemical between the territory of the declaring State Party and the territory of other States, as specified below; …

(…)

  1. that although this decision does not dictate how and on what basis States Parties should collect data, but rather how data collected should be reported by States Parties to the Secretariat, States Parties shall review this, and the implementation of these guidelines in general, on the basis of the Secretariat’s analysis of the first three years of harmonised AND submissions; and further
  2. that the Council shall be tasked to continue work towards harmonising the reporting of Schedule 3 production AND.”