In partnership with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
This two-day conference assessed the challenges to the chemical weapons prohibition regime, and promoted frank dialogue on these issues prior to the 2013 CWC review conference. It also reviewed the state of the CWC regime, including progress on the destruction of chemical weapons stockpiles, as well as reviewing existing opportunities to strengthen the chemical weapons prohibition regime.
The Third CWC Review Conference (RC-3) – scheduled for 8 to 19 April 2013 – comes at the moment when three quarters of the declared CW stockpiles have been destroyed and the workload projected to verify their complete elimination is beginning to dwindle. Although more remains to be done to complete the CWC’s disarmament tasks (destruction of all remaining declared stockpiles, destruction of old and abandoned CW, bringing the remaining States not party into the realm of the treaty and eliminating any CW stockpiles and production facilities they may have), a rebalancing of implementation tasks has begun. At the same time, the external environment within which the CWC operates continues to change.
Advances in science and technology and new security threats related to toxic chemicals as well as globalisation and the financial crisis all demand answers with regard to whether and how CWC implementation should be adapted to change.
