Note on the Chemical Weapons Convention's Second Review Conference, Held at The Hague on 7–18 April 2008

摘要

After giving an introduction to the Chemical Weapons Convention (1993), which bans all chemical weapons worldwide, Section 2 of this note discusses the preparations for and proceedings of its Second Review Conference. The Conference's procedural aspects are considered in Section 3. Section 4 discusses the main findings of the Conference Report on the Convention's provisions, the extent to which these provisions have been implemented, and the performance of the Convention's compliance supervisor, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). Section 5 examines the positions taken in the negotiations by the two key groupings of OPCW member states, the European Union (EU) and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), and these positions’ impact on the Conference's final Report. In conclusion, as a means of maintaining unity among the States Parties and fostering implementation of all the Convention's provisions in the coming years, Section 6 proposes a renewal of the original ‘buy-in’ of chemically least developed states, which took place when the Convention was first signed. These states have distinctive interests that do not fully coincide with those of the industrialized countries. Between these two categories of states there is a group of chemically emerging economies, whose interests are closer to those of the industrialized states.