International Machinery for Monitoring a Chemical Weapons Convention

Abstract

The problems of chemical weapons have been with us for some 70 years now and the Conference on Disarmament in its many guises has been attempting to deal with the modern threats for almost 20 of them. There are signs of optimism, in the ranks of the negotiators; the end is not here as far as the process is concerned since there is much that is difficult still to do but it is in sight. I would like to stress that time is of the essence and that these problems must be solved soon before the notion of use of chemical weapons becomes commonplace. A weapon system in place will be extremely difficult to remove. The monitoring problems are complex and exacerbated by the fact that we will have to “get them right the first time”, as well as have the machinery in place and working by the time the Convention comes into force.