Login/Logout

*
*  

"In my home there are few publications that we actually get hard copies of, but [Arms Control Today] is one and it's the only one my husband and I fight over who gets to read it first."

– Suzanne DiMaggio
Senior Fellow, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
April 15, 2019
December 2014
Edition Date: 
Thursday, December 4, 2014
Cover Image: 

Syrian Chemical Weapons Destruction: Taking Stock and Looking Ahead

December 2014

By Paul F. Walker

Just one year after Syria’s formal accession to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the international body responsible for implementing the treaty, announced this October that almost all of Syria’s declared chemical agents and precursor chemicals had been safely and irreversibly destroyed.[1]

Workers in protective clothing carry a dummy grenade into a bunker during a media day at the GEKA facility in Münster, Germany, on March 5. The liquid waste from the neutralization of Syrian sulfur mustard agent aboard the MV Cape Ray was brought to the GEKA facility last summer for further treatment. (Nigel Treblin/Getty Images)This was an enormously ambitious and difficult effort, especially in light of the ongoing civil war in Syria, the refusal of Syria to cover the costs of demilitarization, the strong reluctance of any other country to destroy the Syrian chemical stockpile on its territory, and the ongoing allegations of continued and indiscriminate chemical weapons use against rebel forces and civilian populations in Syria.

As of October 20, according to the OPCW, almost 98 percent of Syria’s declared stockpile of 1,308 metric tons of sulfur mustard agent and precursor chemicals had been destroyed in four countries and on board the MV Cape Ray, a U.S. Merchant Marine vessel uniquely outfitted in late 2013 to neutralize about half of the stockpile. The success of this disarmament effort, spearheaded by the OPCW and the United Nations in a unique joint mission, represents a historic breakthrough in establishing a world free of chemical weapons, in strengthening the CWC and the OPCW, and in building momentum toward accession to the treaty by Egypt and Israel, the two remaining nonmembers in the Middle East.

Demilitarization in Syria
Egypt, Israel and Syria had long been suspected of harboring chemical weapons stockpiles. Their reluctance to join the CWC stems from the linkage politics in the Middle East, identifying chemical weapons as a possible deterrent to Israel’s nuclear arsenal. The violence of the civil war that has engulfed Syria since 2011 brought attention to the potential use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government or by rebel forces taking over Syrian military sites.

Reports of attacks in Syria allegedly involving chemical weapons began in December 2012 and continued through the summer of 2013. The final report of the review conference for the CWC in April 2013 noted the parties’ “deep concern that chemical weapons may have been used in the Syrian Arab Republic and underlined that use of chemical weapons by anyone under any circumstances would be reprehensible and completely contrary to the legal norms and standards of the international community.”[2]

Yet, the issue of chemical weapons use did not seize world attention until August 21, 2013, when a massive, nighttime attack on civilians took place in a rebel-held area, Ghouta, just east of Damascus, with the nerve agent sarin. Early reports by rebel forces described the deaths of some 1,400 people, including several hundred children, overcome by clouds of yellowish vapor in the middle of the night. Pictures of victims showed frothing at the mouth and suffocation, with none of the visible bullet or shrapnel wounds that one would expect from typical aerial or artillery bombardment.

The UN, at the request of the Syrian government, had dispatched a team of experts to Damascus on August 18 to investigate prior allegations of chemical weapons use. The UN team, led by Åke Sellström of Sweden, included nine OPCW experts and three from the World Health Organization (WHO). After the August 21 attack, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon requested that the team change plans to investigate that attack.

The Sellström team’s September 13 report confirmed that “chemical weapons have been used in the ongoing conflict between the parties in the Syrian Arab Republic, also against civilians, including children, on a relatively large scale.”[3] The following day, Syria deposited its instrument of accession to the CWC with the UN. Largely the result of Russian political intervention with Syria, this disarmament step precluded a threatened U.S. military strike against Syria’s chemical weapons program, made Syria the 190th state-party to the CWC, and set in motion the efforts to safely destroy Syria’s chemical stockpile. On September 17, Russia and the United States announced a framework agreement for elimination of Syria’s chemical arsenal.[4]

The OPCW Executive Council issued a decision on September 27 noting that the treaty would enter into force for Syria on October 14 and calling for a full declaration of Syria’s chemical weapons program, including all weapons, agents, chemicals, laboratories, production plants, and storage facilities as required by Article III of the CWC. In addition, the council required that all mixing and filling equipment, used to fill delivery systems with chemical agents just before launch, be destroyed by November 1 and that “all chemical weapons material and equipment [be destroyed] in the first half of 2014.” It also stipulated that OPCW inspections would begin by October 1, 2013.[5]

Hours after the Executive Council decision, the UN Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 2118, endorsing the OPCW plan.

The very ambitious schedule, based largely on the bilateral U.S.-Russian framework agreement, would require expedited transport and destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons, far faster than any other declared stockpile had been eliminated to date. The first planning decision by the OPCW made in the fall of 2013 was that it would be too risky to set up a destruction facility in Syria in the middle of an ongoing, very violent conflict.

Throughout the OPCW’s 5,500 inspections at 265 chemical weapons-related facilities and more than 2,000 industrial sites in 86 countries, its inspectors had never had to face armed enemies. Syria, however, presented a different situation. The OPCW’s early inspections of Ghouta and other areas demonstrated that its inspectors would likely come under live fire. After August 2013, all inspectors were fitted with bulletproof vests for the first time in the OPCW’s 16-year history.[6]

All declared chemical weapons stockpiles until 2013 had been destroyed within the possessor country, usually very close to the existing storage facilities. The CWC, under Article III and the Verification Annex, assumes that destruction will take place within the possessor country. In the case of Syria, it was decided, for reasons of safety and security, that the chemicals themselves should be removed from Syria and destroyed in a foreign country. The OPCW, UN, and United States proceeded to inquire if any Mediterranean or European countries might be willing to receive the chemicals and have them destroyed on their territory.

No country responded positively to this request. Most of them cited environmental and regulatory requirements that would inhibit meeting the tight timeline established by the OPCW and the framework agreement. Eventually, Finland, Germany, and the United Kingdom declared their willingness to accept limited amounts of precursor chemicals and the larger volume of toxic effluent from first-stage neutralization.

Albania had been proposed as a possible recipient country, perhaps primarily because it had destroyed 15 metric tons of declared mustard agent during 2006 and 2007, but Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama in mid-November 2013 flatly rejected all requests to destroy Syrian chemicals on its territory. News reports cited ongoing frustration by the Albanian government with the failure to clean up toxic waste still remaining from the mustard incineration effort, which Germany, the United States, and other countries had supported.

In December 2012, during the first alleged uses of chemical agents in the Syrian conflict, the U.S. Department of Defense had begun investigating options for destroying chemical stockpiles abroad, long before there was much public discussion about Syria’s chemical arsenal. The chemicals held in the Syrian stockpile were sulfur mustard agent (HD), sarin nerve agent (GB), and precursor chemicals such as methylphosphonyl diflouride (DF), the specific targets of the new U.S. technology development effort. By early February 2013, the Defense Department had committed funding to developing semi-mobile platforms for the neutralization of such agents and chemicals in remote areas. Four months later, in June, the Edgewood Chemical Biological Center in Aberdeen, Maryland, conducted a prototype demonstration.

In light of the political progress made with Syria’s decision to join the CWC and the lack of progress made with European countries in persuading them to accept Syrian chemicals, the United States sent a team to Baltimore  and Portsmouth, Virginia in September 2013 to consider U.S. ships for possible sea deployment of a neutralization facility, something never done previously. The MV Cape Ray, an older roll-on/roll-off freighter, was chosen in November 2013 as a suitable platform for utilizing the new Field Deployable Hydrolysis System, a neutralization unit developed at the Edgewood facility.

The fitting of two of these hydrolysis units aboard the Cape Ray began in Portsmouth on December 2 and was completed six weeks later. After sea trials, the ship departed on January 27, 2014, for the U.S. Navy base in Rota, Spain, where it remained until the last chemicals left Syria. The ship also carried a third hydrolysis unit for spare parts.

Each of these unique chemical hydrolysis systems was designed to fit on two large flatbed trucks for ease of transportation and deployment. Back at Aberdeen, Maryland, the plan was to produce another three hydrolysis units for future use. These systems all reused titanium-lined mixing tanks that had been part of the neutralization process for the 1,471 metric tons of bulk mustard agent from the U.S. chemical stockpile at Aberdeen from 2003 to 2005.

The OPCW-approved plan for destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile involved transporting all chemicals from more than 20 sites to the port of Latakia in northwestern Syria and transferring them to two freighters, the Ark Futura from Denmark and the Taiko from Norway. Once the ships had received all of Syria’s declared chemicals, they would deliver the more dangerous (“Priority 1”) chemicals, mustard and DF, to the Cape Ray for onboard neutralization in the Mediterranean Sea and the less dangerous (“Priority 2”) precursor chemicals to land-based incinerators in Finland, the UK, and the United States. The original deadline for completing the shipments out of Syria was February 5, 2014, but this process required another five months due to concerns expressed by the Syrian government over security along the land-based shipment routes.

The first shipment of chemicals left Latakia on January 7. After several new deadlines were also missed, the 19th and final shipment, about 100 metric tons, of declared chemicals left Latakia on June 23 aboard the Ark Futura. The Taiko had departed Latakia in early June and delivered 130 metric tons of precursor chemicals to the port of Hamina Kotka in Finland, to be incinerated by the company Ekokem, in the town of Riihimaki, just north of Helsinki. The ship then sailed to Port Arthur, Texas, with several hundred tons of precursor chemicals to be incinerated at a Veolia Environmental Services facility just outside Houston.[7]

ashar Jaafari, Syria’s ambassador to the United Nations, speaks to the media about Syrian chemical weapons outside the Security Council chamber on September 12, 2013, two days before Syria deposited its instrument of accession to the Chemical Weapons Convention with the UN. (STAN HONDA/AFP/Getty Images)With all declared chemicals out of Syria, OPCW Director-General Ahmet Üzümcü praised the “extraordinary international cooperation” involved in the effort and reiterated that “never before has an entire arsenal of a category of weapons of mass destruction been removed from a country experiencing a state of internal armed conflict.” In a June 23 statement, he said that although a “major chapter” in his organization’s effort was closing, the “OPCW’s work in Syria will continue.”[8] This last phrase was a reference to the continued discussions with Syria about destruction of declared production and storage facilities, apparent discrepancies in the country’s declaration of its stockpile to the OPCW, and alleged attacks during the Syrian civil war with chlorine, a dual-use chemical not banned by the CWC but prohibited in warfare.

Destruction at Sea
Because the Cape Ray was never allowed into Syrian territorial waters, it needed a Mediterranean port where it could receive the 600 metric tons of mustard agent and sarin precursor from the Ark Futura. After some extended negotiations, the port of Gioia Tauro in southwestern Italy agreed to receive the two ships, and the transfer took place without incident over a half day spanning July 1-2. The Ark Futura sailed to the UK and off-loaded some 150 metric tons of other Priority 1 chemicals to be destroyed at a Veolia Environmental Services incinerator at Ellesmere and at a second company, Mexichem UK Limited.

On July 7, the Cape Ray began neutralizing 19.8 metric tons of sulfur mustard and 581 metric tons of DF in the two hydrolysis units, operating eventually 24 hours a day, six days a week at sea, with a seventh day set aside for maintenance and repair.[9] Original schedule projections indicated that the job would require 60 to 90 days. Those projections assumed that the units would be down for 40 percent of the time due to high seas and bad weather. This would calculate to a throughput rate of 11 to 17 metric tons per operating day of Syrian chemicals. Fortunately, the weather remained very good and the seas very low, allowing the hydrolysis process to finish on August 17, after just 42 days of operations. This indicates an average throughput rate of more than 14 metric tons per day, right in the middle of the range of original projections, but without any unplanned operating downtime.

Operations aboard the ship went very well, with no major incidents. A few minor mishaps took place—a small fire in the kitchen, which was extinguished quickly; a minor leak of reagent, which never escaped the protective enclosure for the hydrolysis system and was easily cleaned up; and a few minor bumps and bruises, as well as dehydration, for the crew. The whole at-sea operation, which raised many concerns around the Mediterranean, appears to have fully met the requirements of the CWC, which states that “during transportation, sampling, storage and destruction of chemical weapons, [each state-party] shall assign the highest priority to ensuring the safety of people and to protecting the environment.”[10]

During the spring of 2014, large citizen demonstrations with more than 10,000 protesters had taken place in Athens, Istanbul, and Cyprus, and a flotilla of boats sought to demonstrate in July. Üzümcü wrote a formal response to a June 2014 letter from the Pancretan Commission Against the Destruction of Syrian Chemical Weapons in the Enclosed Sea of the Mediterranean. He reassured the signers that “the safety of people and protecting the environment has been one of the foremost considerations in all activities relating to the transportation and destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons” and that “[a]ll of these activities…have occurred in accordance with international and national regulations, and without mishap.”[11]

After six weeks in the Mediterranean, the Cape Ray delivered its neutralized sulfur mustard effluent, no longer a chemical weapon but still quite toxic and about 15 times its original volume, to Bremerhaven, Germany. The company GEKA, located outside Hamburg, known for handling military weapons and waste, would receive the 350 to 400 metric tons of waste and burn the material in its incinerator.[12] The ship then sailed to Finland and off-loaded the neutralized DF effluent, about 6,000 metric tons, to be burned at the Ekokem facility.

The Cape Ray returned to Virginia in mid-September. The two hydrolysis units are currently being cleaned and dismantled for possible use elsewhere.

As of October 20, 100 percent (1,047 metric tons) of “Category 1” chemicals and 89 percent (232 metric tons) of “Category 2” chemicals had been destroyed, a total of 98 percent safely eliminated in less than a year of demilitarization operations. The remainder, about 29 metric tons, will be destroyed in the next few months, along with some 6,000 metric tons of toxic effluent.

Click image to enlarge.

Impact and Lessons
The Syrian chemical weapons destruction process in 2013 and 2014 has been a remarkable example of successful multilateral disarmament operations in the middle of a costly and dangerous civil war. It has removed not only the threat of mass-casualty attacks with deadly nerve agents against soldiers and civilians in the Syrian civil war, but also the threat of chemical weapons use against neighboring countries. Furthermore, it has set a precedent for Egypt and Israel, the other two suspected chemical weapons possessor states in the region, to join the near-universal CWC. The complete abolition of chemical weapons in the Middle East will be an important confidence-building measure for negotiations on a zone free of weapons of mass destruction in the region, as proposed by the 2010 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference.

In addition to the political momentum generated for further disarmament efforts focusing on nonconventional weapons in the Middle East, several other important related issues and goals should be noted.

Strengthening the OPCW. With a 500-person staff and a budget of about $88 million, the OPCW, which is based in The Hague, remains much smaller than many of its counterparts in Geneva and Vienna.[13] Yet, it has successfully facilitated and verified the safe elimination of more than 62,000 metric tons of deadly chemicals from millions of weapons at hundreds of sites across the globe. With Syria, which had been one of the last seven nonmember countries, suddenly acceding to the CWC in 2013, momentum has quickened toward “universality”—complete global membership—for the abolition regime. This will not only help prevent the re-emergence of chemical weapons, but will also provide encouragement to the Biological Weapons Convention, with 170 states-parties, and the NPT for abolishing the remaining two classes of nonconventional weapons.

The Chemical Weapons Convention

After more than a dozen years of negotiations, the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) was opened for signature in January 1993, with 158 countries signing the treaty in the first year. By July 1997, just three months after its entry into force, 98 countries had ratified the CWC. The two largest possessor countries, Russia and the United States, ratified the CWC on November 5, 1997, and April 25, 1997, respectively.1

The CWC is unique as an arms control and disarmament treaty in that it bans the development, production, acquisition, stockpiling, retention, transfer, or use of chemical weapons by all states-parties. It establishes an international verification and inspection regime for declared stockpiles and the chemical industry, and it requires all declared chemical weapons, as well as facilities and laboratories related to chemical weapons production, to be safely destroyed within certain deadlines.2 Therefore, it differs from the Biological Weapons Convention by establishing a strict verification regime and from the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty by crafting a nondiscriminatory regime, one in which all member countries abide by the same rules requiring verified abolition of chemical weapons programs.

Syrian accession to the CWC in September 2013 expanded the membership to 190 countries, leaving just six—Angola, Egypt, Israel, Myanmar, North Korea, and South Sudan—outside the treaty. At least two areas of the world, Taiwan and the Palestinian territories, are not yet covered by the CWC due to their unique political situations and lack of UN membership. Taiwan in particular, with a large chemicals industry, will be important to bring under verification in the near future.

Eight countries have declared chemical weapons stockpiles to date: Albania, India, Iraq, Libya, Russia, South Korea, Syria, and the United States, with Russia and the United States accounting for 95 percent of the declared chemical agent tonnage.3
  The implementing body for the CWC is the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), an entity created by the treaty. In the more than 17 years that the CWC has been in force, the OPCW has overseen and verified the safe destruction of 85 percent of the world’s declared chemical weapons stockpiles. This means that more than 62,000 metric tons of deadly chemical agents and millions of weapons (landmines, bombs, rockets, spray tanks, missile warheads, and artillery shells) in seven countries have been destroyed, an enormous step forward in improving global security.

Russia still has 8,000 metric tons of chemical weapons to destroy, and the United States has 2,800 metric tons. Libya has about 850 metric tons of precursor chemicals. Iraq continues to have an unknown quantity of chemical agents and precursor chemicals left in two large bunkers at the site in Fallujah known as al Muthanna. Sealed in the mid-1990s by UN inspectors, these bunkers were reportedly captured by the Islamic State militant group in June 2014. According to recent reports, the group might have used chemical weapons in the siege of Kobani in the Kurdish area of northern Syria.4

ENDNOTES

1. For an excellent history of the long negotiations on the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), see Daniel Feakes and Ian Kenyon, eds., The Creation of OPCW: A Case Study in the Birth of an Intergovernmental Organization (The Hague: TMC Asser Press, 2007).

2. For the text of the CWC, see http://www.opcw.org/chemical-weapons-convention/.

3. For a history of chemical weapons destruction, see Paul F. Walker, “Abolishing Chemical Weapons: Progress, Challenges, and Opportunities,” Arms Control Today, November 2010.

4. Joseph Cirincione and Paul Walker, “Is ISIS Using Chemical Weapons?” Defense One, October 14, 2014, http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2014/10/isis-using-chemical-weapons/96425/?oref=search_Walker.

    None of this will happen automatically. In order to bring the remaining six countries (see box) into the treaty regime, there must be a determined effort by the OPCW, CWC states-parties, the UN, and civil society to press these countries to join the CWC and other arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation regimes. Countries that acceded to the CWC in recent years, such as the Bahamas in 2009, required direct visits by high-ranking OPCW officials and technical support with convention declarations and national implementation. Although the OPCW has specific plans for promoting universality, national legislation, and assistance and cooperation, the states-parties need to take an active role in persuading countries to join. The CWC Coalition, an active network of some 150 nongovernmental experts and organizations across the globe, should actively work with civil society in these nonmember countries to build a public discussion about their lack of membership.[14]

    There needs to be careful reconsideration by states-parties of the OPCW annual budget, which has fallen from a peak of more than $100 million annually during the 2007-2011 period to a low of less than $93 million projected for 2015. This decline has forced reductions in the size, seniority, and experience of the organization’s staff. The costs for OPCW inspections and verification for 2013 and 2014 in Syria alone, not projected in the earlier budget plans, were $5.5 million; these funds were fortunately raised through a special voluntary fund.

    Multilateralizing disarmament. The role of the OPCW is to implement the CWC and verify stockpile destruction; there is very little it can do to enforce the regime other than refer violations to the UN. The joint efforts among the OPCW, the UN, and the WHO to investigate the alleged use of chemical agents in the Syrian civil war and to remove Syrian chemicals from the country were very successful. This OPCW-UN joint mission, headed by Dutch diplomat Sigrid Kaag, worked out very well. There were some issues of miscommunication and competing leadership early in the operation, but in the end, this multiagency effort demonstrated that large, multilateral bureaucracies can indeed work well together.

    This joint mission also underlined the importance of UN Security Council Resolution 1540, which establishes legally binding obligations on all states under Chapter VII of the UN Charter to prevent the proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and their means of delivery to other countries and nonstate actors. The UN must press this national obligation on CWC nonmembers.[15]

    Building transparency. Early in the Syrian chemical demilitarization operations, very little information was made available to the public and interested nongovernmental stakeholders. This led to unnecessary suspicions about what was actually happening to secure and destroy Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile and what risks might arise, especially for Mediterranean countries. Syria had reportedly requested confidentiality from the OPCW regarding its declaration and stockpile figures, and other countries were very sensitive about their role in the operation. For example, Italy did not reveal until mid-January that Gioia Tauro would be used for the transfer of Syrian chemicals from the Ark Futura to the Cape Ray. The mayor of Gioia Tauro complained at the time that the national government had not informed him of the decision, that he and his colleagues had “received no official information,” and that they were “stumbling around in the dark.” He also warned that they would “pursue all legal means” to prevent the port operation.[16]

    Eventually, the OPCW decided to post summary figures of the Syrian declared stockpile and to update destruction figures monthly on the OPCW website. This latter effort helped alleviate some public anxiety and build confidence in the process.

    Engaging stakeholders. Quiet and productive international discussions had been continuing since at least 2011 at governmental and nongovernmental levels to prevent the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian conflict, to prevent a foreign military attack on Syria, and to bring Syria into the CWC. Once Syria acceded to the CWC, the process of the country’s declaration, the required on-site inspections, and the demilitarization plans were closed to public scrutiny. By late 2013, it became known that Syria’s chemicals would be shipped out of country and half of the exported tonnage would be destroyed at sea. Public protests began to mount in Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Turkey, and elsewhere, and national governments demanded to be more informed about the process.

    On February 3, 2014, a dozen chemical demilitarization experts, including this author, from the nongovernmental sector wrote to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel suggesting a more robust public outreach effort, including several “national dialogues” in the Mediterranean region and real-time updates from the Cape Ray while it was operating in the sea. This letter also was sent to officials such as Kaag, Üzümcü, and Angela Kane, head of the UN Office of Disarmament Affairs. The letter stated that “[e]ngaging potentially impacted communities in a timely and transparent way will not only strengthen the protection of public health and the environment, but it will help alleviate public concerns that could otherwise undermine this historic and important demilitarization mission.”[17] There was no reply to this letter.

    Although the State Department organized several invitation-only, off-the-record discussions for Washington-based stakeholders and the OPCW organized two invitation-only conference calls for a select group of European nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), the public outreach effort was never sufficient to satisfy concerned organizations and citizens, especially those in the Mediterranean region most likely to be affected by any accidents. The Defense Department organized an “open house” for media and NGOs on the Cape Ray while it was docked in Rota, Spain for more than three months prior to the destruction efforts, but this was done on a last-minute basis with no travel support and failed to attract NGOs.[18]

    The failure to produce an integrated plan to inform and involve the public was partly due to the multilateral process, with many senior players pointing the finger of responsibility at other colleagues, but it clearly undermined public confidence in the demilitarization plan. The ambitious schedule also caused national and multilateral bureaucracies to shortcut public outreach efforts. Nevertheless, the many delays in the process of removing the chemicals from Syria provided opportunities for much more coordinated outreach and public information if the responsible officials had been inclined to take advantage of those opportunities. Such action would have reduced the mistrust with which the public and governments approached the removal and destruction operations.

    Financing demilitarization. Syria made it known very early in the process that it could not afford to pay the costs of its demilitarization plan. It covered some of the costs for aspects such as land-based transportation, security, and facility destruction, but would not pay for out-of-country chemical destruction or for the verification work by the OPCW, although the CWC requires state-parties that possess chemical weapons to pay these costs.[19]

    Fortunately, some three dozen countries made financial or in-kind contributions or both to support the disarmament operations and inspections. Üzümcü reported to the OPCW Executive Council in early October that the trust fund established for that purpose had received almost $65 million from 24 states-parties and the European Union.[20] In addition, U.S. operations aboard the Cape Ray, the use of Danish and Norwegian freighters, and the convoy that provided security for the three ships must have totaled several hundred million dollars. Although at least three countries—India, South Korea, and the United States—have covered their chemical weapons demilitarization costs, another three—Albania, Libya, and Russia—have relied on outside funding to cover at least part of their costs. This may argue for an ongoing OPCW trust fund for operations to be used in cases of demilitarization, challenge inspections, and other urgent tasks.[21]

    Inspecting demilitarization. The OPCW has been under pressure from states-parties, especially the major bill payers such as the United States, to reduce its annual budget for the last several years. This had led to major staffing reductions in the inspectorate from about 175 inspectors to fewer than 125, with much less experience. When the Syrian operation arose in 2013, the OPCW had to scramble to rehire some 50 inspectors, many of them having been out of the job for several years. These returning inspectors substituted for the many active OPCW inspectors needed for the Syrian teams. In the end, this worked out well, but it raises questions about the future size of the OPCW inspectorate and how best to ensure readiness to carry out urgent missions in a timely way.[22]

    The OPCW and the CWC states-parties should reconsider the current plans for the standing size of the OPCW inspectorate, which would be available for demilitarization operations and industry inspections. Chemical industry inspections are becoming much more important as the OPCW seeks to prevent the re-emergence of chemical weapons and to promote peaceful uses of chemistry. The OPCW should consider developing an ongoing active-reserve inspectorate that would be on call for urgent and unpredictable operations such as the one in Syria. Funding for such a reserve force should be part of the budget reconsideration discussed above.

    Conclusion
    After a year of active and ongoing demilitarization operations, with almost all of Syria’s declared chemicals destroyed, the UN, the OPCW, and contributing countries can declare a large if not yet total success. Syria has recently revealed at least two new canisters of sarin discovered in “rebel-held territory” and four additional facilities related to chemical weapons—three research and development facilities and one production site for ricin. In addition, there have been new allegations of attacks with chlorine on rebel forces in Syria.[23] These issues demonstrate that the demilitarization process is not yet finished and that the OPCW must continue its inspections and fact-finding missions. Moreover, this multilateral disarmament effort has not put a stop to the ongoing and widespread violence in Syria.

    Yet, the laudable and costly efforts to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons program over the past year have demonstrated that the world is very close to eliminating an entire class of weapons of mass destruction from the globe. This alone is a very worthy step forward in global security and most appropriate as the world approaches the 100th anniversary of the first massive use of chemical weapons in warfare.


    Paul F. Walker is director of environmental security and sustainability with Green Cross International. He holds a Ph.D. in international security studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is a former professional staff member for the U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee. He was awarded the Right Livelihood Award in 2013 for his work to press for the elimination of chemical weapons. He serves on the Arms Control Association Board of Directors.


    ENDNOTES

    1. Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), “Syrian Chemical Destruction Data,” October 20, 2014, http://www.opcw.org/special-sections/syria/destruction-statistics/.

    2. OPCW Conference of the States Parties, “Report of the Third Special Session of the Conference of the States Parties to Review the Operation of the Chemical Weapons Convention,” RC-3/3, April 19, 2013.

    3. UN General Assembly and UN Security Council, “Report of the United Nations Mission to Investigate Allegations of the Use of Chemical Weapons in the Syrian Arab Republic on the Alleged Use of Chemical Weapons in the Ghouta Area of Damascus on 21 August 2013,” A/67/997-S/2013/553, September 16, 2013. See OPCW, “UN Investigation Team Returns to The Hague From Syria,” September 2, 2013, http://www.opcw.org/news/article/un-investigation-team-returns-to-the-hague-from-syria/.

    4. OPCW, “Joint National Paper by the Russian Federation and the United States of America: Framework for Elimination of Syrian Chemical Weapons,” EC-M-33/NAT.1, September 17, 2013.

    5. OPCW, “Decision: Destruction of Syrian Chemical Weapons,” EC-M-33/DEC.1, September 27, 2013.

    6. OPCW, “OPCW Director-General Condemns Attack on UN Inspection Team,” August 26, 2013, http://www.opcw.org/news/article/opcw-director-general-condemns-attack-on-un-inspection-team/.

    7. For a weekly blog on the destruction of Syrian chemical weapons, see Green Cross International, http://www.gcint.org/green-cross-blog/.

    8. OPCW, “Announcement to Media on Last Consignment of Chemicals Leaving Syria,” June 23, 2014, http://www.opcw.org/news/article/announcement-to-media-on-last-consignment-of-chemicals-leaving-syria/.

    9. See Daniel Horner, “Syrian Chemicals Destroyed on U.S. Ship,” Arms Control Today, September 2014.

    10. Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), art. IV, para. 10.

    11. Ahmet Üzümcü, Letter to the Pancretan Commission Against the Destruction of Syrian Chemical Weapons in the Enclosed Sea of the Mediterranean, L/ODG/192695/14, July 29, 2014.

    12. See Annette Langer, “Kampfstoff-Entsorgung: Syrische Chemiewaffen in der Heide,” Der Spiegel, April 9, 2014, http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/gesellschaft/giftgas-aus-syrien-geka-in-munster-entsorgt-senfgas-von-der-cape-ray-a-963357.html.

    13. For the latest OPCW financial report, see OPCW, “Financial Statements of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and Report of the External Auditor for the Year Ending 31 December 2013,” EC-77/DG.1, July 14, 2014; OPCW, “Draft Decision: Draft Program and Budget of the OPCW for 2015,” EC-77/DEC/CRP.7, October 2, 2014.

    14. The author is the coordinator of this coalition, which held a roundtable in Tel Aviv and met with Israeli parliamentarians in November 2014.

    15. See Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, U.S. Department of State, “United Nations Security Council Resolution 1540,” n.d., http://www.state.gov/t/isn/c18943.htm.

    16. Lizzy Davies, “Italian Mayor Dismayed as Port Chosen for Syrian Chemical Weapons Transfer,” The Guardian, January 16, 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/16/italian-mayor-port-gioia-tauro-syrian-chemical-weapons.

    17. For the text of the letter, see Green Cross International, “Public Outreach and Stakeholder Involvement in Destruction of Syrian Chemical Weapons,” February 4, 2014, http://www.gcint.org/public-outreach-and-stakeholder-involvement-destruction-syrian-chemical-weapons

    18. The open house produced several stories in the press. For example, see Frank Gardner, “Syria Chemical Weapons: Time Running Out for Destruction,” BBC, April 10, 2014, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-26979101.

    19. Paragraph 16 of CWC Article IV specifically states: “Each State Party shall meet the costs of destruction of chemical weapons it is obliged to destroy.”

    20. OPCW, “Note by the Director-General: Progress in the Elimination of the Syrian Chemical Weapons Program,” EC-77/DG.22, September 24, 2014, para. 14.

    21. For example, Libya is now asking for the financial and technical support of the OPCW and CWC states-parties to remove and destroy its remaining precursor chemicals.

    22. In a recent interview, Üzümcü said that the number of inspectors would be further reduced to “90 or so.” See Jean Pascal Zanders, “Üzümcü: ‘After Syria I Do Not See Any Country Able to Use Chemical Weapons Anymore,’” The Trench, November 17, 2014, http://www.the-trench.org/uzumcu-interview/.

    23. See OPCW, “Update on Syrian Chemical Weapons and the Fact-Finding Mission Into Alleged Chlorine Gas Attack,” May 22, 2014, http://www.opcw.org/news/article/update-on-syrian-chemical-weapons-destruction-and-the-fact-finding-mission-into-alleged-chlorine-gas/.

    The successful chemical disarmament effort in Syria represents a historic step toward the goal of ridding the world of chemical weapons. The Syrian experience has strengthened the global regime centered on the CWC.

    Nations Prepare for ATT Obligations

    December 2014

    By Jefferson Morley

    When the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) enters into force Dec. 24, a longtime dream of international civil society—regulation of the world’s weapons market—will become reality. That is when the difficult work begins, treaty proponents say.

    Panelists participate in an event on the Arms Trade Treaty at the United Nations on April 2. The treaty will enter into force December 24. (Control Arms)“Most states won’t be ready to implement the ATT when it enters into force,” predicted Rachel Stohl of the Stimson Center in a Nov. 17 interview. “And the ones that are ready can do more.”

    The treaty, approved by the UN General Assembly in April 2013, is the first global, legally binding agreement to regulate the global market in weapons. More than 50 countries have ratified the treaty and must apply the treaty’s criteria when making decisions about the transfer of weapons ranging from small arms to battle tanks, combat aircraft, and warships. The treaty forbids transfers that support terrorism, organized crime, war crimes, genocide, or human rights abuses.

    Another 68 countries, including the United States, have signed the treaty, but not ratified it.

    The ATT’s two biggest initial obligations, according to Stohl, are the establishment of a national control system for the import and export of arms and the creation of a national control list of weapons whose transfer will be scrutinized under the criteria established by the treaty. Countries must file their first report on the import and export of arms by May 31, 2015, according to the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs, and their first report on implementation of the treaty by the end of 2015.

    A survey of 44 countries that have signed or ratified the ATT, conducted by Stohl and arms analyst Paul Holtom, found that almost all of them have control lists.

    The survey found wide disparities in how countries regulate arms transfers. Although 86 percent of the respondent countries said they issue an annual report on arms exports, for example, only 68 percent said they produce an annual report on arms imports.

    “There’s no one-size-fits-all approach,” Stohl said. “Arms-producing countries will have different needs than nonproducing countries. We’re looking to find out what the best practices are.”

    The ATT preamble emphasizes “the need to prevent and eradicate the illicit trade in conventional arms and prevent their diversion,” but the treaty does not specify how countries should achieve this goal.

    Countries can choose among measures such as preshipment checks, verification of end users, and improvements in dock security and port security, Stohl said. All countries have to “decide what will work best for them,” she said. According to Stohl, there will not be a global “denied persons list” or “approved brokers lists,” but “it makes sense for each country to share that kind of information.”

    Participating countries held preparatory conferences for implementation of the ATT Sept. 8-9 in Mexico City and Nov. 27-28 in Berlin to discuss, among other issues, the treaty’s reporting requirements.

    The scope of the ATT’s reporting requirements is “basically identical” to that of the main categories of the UN Register of Conventional Arms, Angela Kane, UN high representative for disarmament affairs, said at the Mexico City meeting. One difference, she noted, is that the ATT requires reporting on transfers of small arms. Data on such transfers are considered voluntary “additional background information” in the reporting for the register.

    The Obama administration has not reported on U.S. efforts to prepare for the treaty because of a January 2014 congressional ban on expenditures “to implement the Arms Trade Treaty until the Senate approves a resolution of ratification” for it.

    The administration has not issued a timetable for submitting the ATT to the Senate.

    As the global treaty to regulate the arms trade enters into force, all 50-plus participating nations will have to issue public reports on the import and export of weapons within a year.

    States Clash on Disarmament at UN

    December 2014

    By Kingston Reif

    As states without nuclear weapons are growing increasingly impatient with what they say is the slow pace of nuclear disarmament efforts in the lead-up to the 2015 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) Review

    Conference, the United States and most other nuclear-weapom states have continued to vote against resolutions aimed at accelerating progress toward the elimination of nuclear weapons at the UN disarmament committee in New York.

    The UN General Assembly First Committee meets to adopt an agenda and work program on October 2. (UN Photo)Four of the five countries recognized as nuclear-weapon states by the NPT (France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) voted against a resolution calling for the “urgent commencement” of negotiations in the Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva to pursue the “early conclusion” of a comprehensive convention on nuclear weapons to prohibit their “possession, development, production, acquisition, testing, stockpiling, transfer and use or threat of use, and to provide for their destruction.” (See ACT, December 2013.) In the UN General Assembly First Committee, which deals with nuclear disarmament, 135 countries supported the resolution.

    The resolution was one of several offered this year that the committee has considered in previous years.
    China was the only recognized nuclear-weapon state to support the resolution. India and Pakistan also voted in favor of the resolution; Israel and North Korea opposed it.

    India, Israel, and Pakistan have nuclear weapons, but are not members of the NPT. North Korea joined the NPT, but announced its withdrawal from the treaty in 2003, an action that NPT members have not officially recognized.
    In a joint statement, France, the UK, and the United States said that the call for a convention to abolish nuclear weapons “is not mentioned as such in the 2010 [NPT] Action Plan” and that “a practical step-by-step process is the only way to make real progress in our disarmament efforts.” At the May 2010 NPT Review Conference, the states-parties adopted a 64-point action plan across the three “pillars” of the NPT: nuclear disarmament, nonproliferation, and peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

    The other states that voted against the resolution or abstained are members of NATO or are “nuclear umbrella” states that have nuclear security agreements with Washington, such as Japan.

    According to a September 2014 analysis published on the website of Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists by Hans Kristensen and Robert S. Norris, there are approximately 16,300 nuclear weapons located at some 98 sites in 14 countries. Russia and the United States together possess 93 percent of the total global inventory.

    Except for China and Pakistan, which abstained, every state with nuclear weapons also voted against a resolution titled “Towards a Nuclear-Weapon-Free World: Accelerating the Implementation of Nuclear Disarmament Commitments.” The supporters of the resolution, led by Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, and South Africa, said they were “[d]eeply disappointed” with “the continued absence of progress towards multilateral negotiations on nuclear disarmament” and “urge[d] the Conference on Disarmament to commence, without delay, substantive work that advances the agenda of nuclear disarmament.”

    The First Committee approved the resolution by a vote of 166-7 with five abstentions.

    In addition, the United States joined France, Russia, and the UK as the only opponents of a resolution on “taking forward multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations.” The resolution laments “the absence of concrete outcomes of multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations within the United Nations framework for more than a decade.”

    France, the UK, and the United States opposed the resolution on the grounds that it reflects “a substantial and unwarranted focus” on nuclear disarmament processes beyond those of the NPT and CD and places disproportionate focus on nuclear disarmament at the expense of the other two pillars of the NPT—nonproliferation and the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

    In an Oct. 7 statement to the First Committee, Rose Gottemoeller, U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, emphasized the importance of “patience and persistence” on the path toward nuclear disarmament. Gottemoeller suggested thinking about disarmament “in terms of how creeks and streams connect to form rivers. Over time, those mighty rivers are irreversible; they cut through massive and seemingly impenetrable stone on the way to their final destination.”

    In an Oct. 9 interview with Arms Control Today, Gottemoeller disputed the concerns of the non-nuclear-weapon states about the slow pace of disarmament. She said that the nuclear-weapon states have done “a spectacular job in reducing and eliminating our nuclear arsenals” since the height of the Cold War and that there have “been inadequate communications between the nuclear-weapon states and the non-nuclear-weapon states” on the difficulty of reducing and eliminating nuclear weapons.

    In an Oct. 8 statement to the First Committee, Mikhail Ulyanov, a Russian arms control official, said that the UN Disarmament Commission and the CD “have suffered stagnation for many years.” But he warned that shifting disarmament negotiations to “new fora” would “threaten to bring serious damage to the existing institutions.”

    The sponsors of the First Committee resolutions calling for accelerating the pace of disarmament continue to stress that their efforts are consistent with the NPT. They note that Article VI of the treaty requires “effective measures relating to the cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament” and that the 2010 NPT Review Conference agreed to “the objective of achieving a world without nuclear weapons.”

    At the UN disarmament committee, nuclear-weapon states generally voted against resolutions aimed at speeding up progress toward the elimination of nuclear arms.

    EU Ready for Negotiations on Space Code

    December 2014

    By Timothy Farnsworth

    The European Union says it is ready to begin negotiations on a final draft of its proposed international code of conduct for activities in outer space, but several countries are still asking for more time.

    In an Oct. 27 statement to the UN General Assembly First Committee, Clara Ganslandt of the European External Action Service, the EU’s diplomatic arm, said the EU and many participating countries are ready to move the process of developing a code of conduct for space to a “negotiating phase.” Since June 2012, the participants have been engaged in “open-ended” consultations.

    Ganslandt, who heads the division of the diplomatic service that deals with weapons of mass destruction, conventional weapons, and space issues, said several countries requested more time to study the proposal that would launch negotiations. The EU is “currently consulting” with these states, she said.

    In her statement, Ganslandt said the latest draft of the code of conduct from the May 2014 consultation in Luxembourg would serve as the basis for the negotiating phase and “remains open to further changes.”

    The proposal calling for the negotiations to begin has been circulated among some UN member states, but was never officially presented to the UN Secretariat as a formal document and has not been made public, according to a UN official familiar with the document.

    The goal of the code is to establish guidelines for responsible behavior in space that would reduce the risk of debris-generating events and increase transparency in space operations in order to avoid collisions between space assets and debris.

    Since 2008, when the EU began the process of developing a code, the deadline for producing a final text has been delayed at least twice. In 2012, when the open-ended consultations were announced in order to gain broader support from the international community, the EU had hoped to host a diplomatic conference by the end of 2013. (See ACT, September 2012.) At the end of the final consultation meeting in May 2014, meeting chairman Jacek Bylica said in his closing remarks that he hoped to conclude the process by the end of 2014.

    In a Nov. 20 e-mail to Arms Control Today, Bylica, who is principal adviser and special envoy for nonproliferation and disarmament in the EU diplomatic service, said moving to a negotiating phase of the process would be difficult next year because of “a very rich calendar” that includes events such as the month-long nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty review conference and the first conference of states-parties to the Arms Trade Treaty. Even so, the EU is “looking for ways which would enable all willing to do so to engage in the negotiations” on the code, Bylica said.

    Christopher Buck, the U.S. alternate representative to the UN First Committee, said in his Oct. 27 statement to the committee, “We now look forward to working next year with the European Union and the international community in an inclusive process to finalize” the code of conduct.

    In January 2012, the United States announced that it backed EU efforts to establish a code of conduct for space, but would not sign the document at that time. (See ACT, March 2012.) Later that year, the EU established the open-ended consultations as a result of criticism by many countries, including Brazil and India, that the EU process for developing the text was not inclusive enough. (See ACT, July/August 2012.)

    Many countries have argued that the United Nations is the appropriate place to debate the code of conduct. In a joint statement at the end of their summit last July, the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—a group of countries known as the BRICS—“call[ed] for an inclusive and consensus-based multilateral negotiation to be conducted within the framework of the UN without specific deadlines in order to reach a balanced outcome that addresses the needs and reflects the concerns of all participants.” Many other countries, including the United States and EU members, have been against negotiating a code within the UN fold to avoid being bogged down in procedural questions. (See ACT, November 2012.)

    The BRICS statement also called for negotiations to conclude an “international agreement or agreements to prevent an arms race in outer space” and welcomed the introduction by China and Russia of the updated draft Treaty on the Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space, the Threat or Use of Force Against Outer Space Objects. The United States has been critical of that draft treaty since China and Russia introduced the original text in 2008.

    The European Union says it is ready to begin negotiations on a final draft of its proposed space code, but several countries are still asking for more time.

    CTBTO Conducts Major Field Exercise

    December 2014

    By Daryl G. Kimball

    Participants in the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization’s five-week-long field exercise in Jordan adjust monitoring equipment on November 18. (CTBTO)The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) launched its second full-scale, on-site inspection field exercise in a remote desert region adjoining the Dead Sea southwest of Amman, Jordan, in early November.

    The objective of the five-week-long exercise, which will cost an estimated $10.3 million, including in-kind contributions from nine states and the European Union, is to test the CTBTO’s ability to determine whether a nuclear test explosion has taken place following the entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

    The month-long event, known as Integrated Field Exercise 2014 (IFE14), involves a multinational team of more than 200 experts and scientists, including officials from the fictitious CTBT state-party under inspection and an inspection team of 40 experts searching a rugged area of approximately 1,000 square kilometers for evidence of a nuclear test. The team is deploying a wide range of inspection techniques, including radionuclide, seismic, geophysical, and other methods, as would be permitted under an actual inspection if requested and approved by the CTBTO’s executive council of states-parties.

    At a Nov. 15 briefing at the inspection area in Jordan, Oleg Rozhkov, the director of the On-Site Inspection Division and IFE14 project executive, described the exercise’s scenario. Under that scenario, the CTBT has been in force for six months when the CTBTO’s International Monitoring System (IMS) detects suspicious seismic readings and noble gas emissions indicative of a nuclear blast. Five days later, a state-party requests an on-site inspection; the Executive Council approves the request. Ten days after the initial readings, the inspection team moves in to set up a base of operations.

    Fourteen days later and after negotiations with officials from the inspected state who claim the IMS’s readings were wrong, the first CTBTO team moves into the field using sensitive and mobile seismic and radiation monitoring equipment. Using visual surveys, aircraft reconnaissance, and satellite information to supplement the readings from the field equipment, the inspection team quickly narrows its search to four smaller areas of interest in the inspection zone. Once there, the team looks for more-definitive evidence of a prohibited nuclear explosion, such as the collapse of an underground cavity or emissions of additional noble gases.

    “IFE14 demonstrates the CTBTO’s advanced capabilities” and shows that the organization is in “the last phase of [its] preparations for on-site inspections” and is ready for the CTBT’s entry into force, CTBTO Executive Secretary Lassina Zerbo said in a Nov. 18 interview.

    Short-notice on-site inspections can only be requested and approved following the treaty’s entry into force. Under Annex 2 of the treaty, 44 specified countries must ratify the treaty to bring it into force. Eight of those 44 countries have not ratified the treaty.

    The IMS consists of 337 stations, 85 percent of which are operational and transmitting data.

    The exercise in Jordan is the most extensive since the CTBTO was established in 1997. In 2008 the CTBTO conducted its first IFE at the former Soviet nuclear test site located in present-day Kazakhstan. (See ACT, November 2008.)

    Beginning in 2009, the CTBTO carried out a series of build-up exercises for IFE14 to practice specific methods, techniques, and sensor technologies in Austria, Finland, Hungary, and Jordan. These included testing special multispectral and infrared sensors used for overflight monitoring, as well as field-testing communications equipment to ensure it is secure from eavesdropping by inspected states-parties. Several training workshops on on-site inspections also were held, most recently in Yangzhou, China, in November 2013.

    In combination with the CTBTO’s success in detecting North Korea’s three nuclear tests, the exercise in Jordan “proves that we’re ready to detect any type of nuclear test explosion,” Zerbo said in a separate statement issued Nov. 18.

    The results of IFE14 will be evaluated at a workshop to be held in Israel in March 2015, which will be open to officials from all signatory states, including Egypt and Iran, according to CTBTO officials. Those two countries, along with Israel, are the region’s Annex 2 states.

    “I am confident the exercise will prove that CTBT on-site inspections are a viable deterrent against would-be Treaty violators,” Rozhkov said.

    The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization launched a five-week-long, on-site inspection field exercise in a remote desert region adjoining the Dead Sea.

    More Scrutiny for Autonomous Weapons

    December 2014

    By Jefferson Morley

    Autonomous weapons systems will receive more scrutiny at a UN conference next year after stark divisions emerged among the states-parties in Geneva attending the annual meeting of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) Nov. 11-14.

    At the end of the meeting, conference president Remigiusz Henczel of Poland announced “an informal meeting of experts” next April 13-17 to discuss questions related to the emerging technologies that policymakers call “lethal autonomous weapons systems” and headline writers have dubbed “killer robots.”

    The issue raised by these new weapons technologies was first taken up by the United Nations after the April 2013 report by Christof Heyns, the organization’s special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions, called for a moratorium on the development of weapons that can target and kill without human intervention.

    The first multinational conference dedicated exclusively to robotic warfare took place in Geneva last May. (See ACT, June 2014.)

    Several nongovernmental organizations and a handful of countries renewed their calls for a pre-emptive ban on lethal autonomous weapons systems. But, as happened last May, the only consensus that the 80-plus governments in attendance could muster was that autonomous weapons need more study.

    “Important questions still remain,” the European Union said in a Nov. 13 statement. The Campaign to Ban Killer Robots, a coalition of nongovernmental groups, lamented the lack of a “sense of urgency” in the scheduling of more study. The campaign called on delegates to adopt the standard that all weapons systems must have “meaningful human control” or else be prohibited.

    Michael Biontino, a German representative at the conference, concurred. “We regard the retention of human control over the decision about life and death as indispensable,” he said.

    Autonomous Systems Versus Drones
    One key difference among the speakers was whether lethal autonomous systems are already in use.
    Delegates from Cuba and the Palestinian territories suggested that U.S. and Israeli drones deployed in armed conflicts in Pakistan and Gaza qualify as autonomous or semiautonomous weapons.

    “Drones with lethal autonomous munitions have been extensively used to target Palestinians,” Palestinian representative Adel Atieh said at the meeting. He alleged that observation towers around Gaza “are equipped with automatic gun machines with lethal autonomous capabilities.” Atieh said several Palestinian farmers had been killed by the machines.

    The Israel Defense Forces did not respond to requests for comment.

    Cuba is concerned about the use of semiautonomous military technologies such as unmanned aerial vehicles, said Anayansi Rodriguez Camejo, the country’s representative to the UN in Geneva.

    Vatican representative Silvano Tomasi said further studying of lethal autonomous weapons systems “does not dispense the CCW from discussing in an appropriate manner the complex question of use of armed drones.”
    Other countries made a distinction between drones and lethal autonomous systems, saying the latter are not yet a reality. “We are not speaking here about existing weapons systems,” said a UK government statement.
    Russian representative Vladimir Yermakov said there are no working models of lethal autonomous systems. Discussion of “international legal regulation of virtual technology that presently has no functioning models seems to be doubtful,” he said in a statement.

    What Is to Be Studied?
    One of the issues likely to be debated at the meeting next April, say independent experts, is whether the use of autonomous weapons should be governed by international humanitarian law or international human rights law.
    Humanitarian law applies “in situations of armed conflict whereas human rights laws, or at least some of them, protect the individual at all times, in war and peace alike,” according to the website of the International Committee for the Red Cross.

    At last May’s meeting on robotic warfare, the International Committee for Robot Arms Control, a group of academic experts seeking a pre-emptive ban on autonomous systems, said, “It is not enough to consider only armed conflict or international humanitarian laws when discussing autonomous weapons.” States should consider the human rights implications “in any situation,” the committee said.

    At the November meeting, Venkatesh Varma of India urged the attending nations to go beyond legal questions and assess the impact of the weapons on international security “if there is dissemination of such weapon systems.”

    The autonomous features of existing weapons system need further study, said Laura Boillot, a project manager at Article 36, a London-based human rights group that seeks an international treaty to pre-emptively ban weapons that are fully autonomous.

    “Understanding the controls that are considered acceptable in existing systems should help to work out what is acceptable in future systems,” Boillot wrote in a Nov. 18 e-mail to Arms Control Today.

    “We have a number of experts’ individual views,” Jean-Hugues Simon-Michel of France, chair of the May experts meeting, said in a Nov. 21 e-mail to Arms Control Today. “We need now to move towards official national positions. It is a necessary step that we cannot avoid.”

    As nongovernmental organizations renew their call for a ban on “killer robots,” a divided UN conference in Geneva can agree only to another experts meeting in April 2015.

    U.S. to Attend Nuclear Meeting

    December 2014

    By Kingston Reif

    The United States will attend a December conference in Vienna on the humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons use, the State Department announced Nov. 7.

    In a press statement, the department said the decision to attend the conference came after “a careful review of the agenda as well as discussions with the conference host Austria.” The United States “fully understands the serious consequences of nuclear weapons use and gives the highest priority to avoiding their use,” the statement said.

    The Vienna gathering will be the third conference in the past two years focused on the medical and societal impact of nuclear weapons use. The first meeting took place in March 2013 in Oslo and brought together representatives from 127 governments. Delegations from 146 governments attended the second conference, held in Nayarit, Mexico, this February.

    In the past, the United States has expressed concern that some conference organizers believe the meetings are intended to lead toward talks on a convention on the elimination of nuclear weapons. (See ACT, November 2014.) In the Nov. 7 statement, the State Department said, “[T]his conference is not the appropriate venue for disarmament negotiations or pre-negotiation discussions and the United States will not engage in efforts of that kind in Vienna.”

    Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan attended the Oslo and Nayarit conferences, but the five countries recognized as nuclear-weapon states by the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty did not.

    The United Kingdom announced on Dec. 2 that it would attend the Vienna meeting. It is unclear whether China, France, or Russia will do so.

    The Vienna conference and the two that preceded it reflect the growing impatience of many non-nuclear-weapon states with what they characterize as the slow pace of progress toward nuclear disarmament.

    The State Department said it views the Vienna meeting as “a useful opportunity to highlight the significant progress the United States has made and the resources it devotes to create conditions under which nuclear weapons are never again used.”

    The United States will attend a December conference in Vienna on the humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons use, the State Department announced Nov. 7.

    Pentagon Releases Nuclear Reviews

    December 2014

    By Kingston Reif

    In the wake of professional and ethical lapses and poor morale in the U.S. nuclear force, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced on Nov. 14 the results of two reviews of the Defense Department’s management of nuclear weapons and the steps the department is taking to address the numerous setbacks.

    At a press briefing at the Pentagon, Hagel said that an internal and an external review “found evidence of systematic problems that if not addressed could undermine the safety, security, and effectiveness of the elements of the force in the future.” He attributed the problems to “a lack of sustained focus, attention, and resources, resulting in a pervasive sense that a career in the nuclear enterprise offers too few opportunities for growth and advancement.”

    The Air Force, particularly the service’s intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) force, has been embarrassed by revelations over the past two years of failed nuclear security inspections at ICBM bases, misconduct by senior nuclear commanders, and cheating by missileers on performance tests. In response, Hagel in January ordered internal and external reviews of all U.S. nuclear forces. (See ACT, March 2014.)

    Hagel announced numerous steps intended to fix the problems plaguing the force. These include changing the conduct of inspections to reduce the burden on airmen and sailors, eliminating micromanagement of nuclear personnel seen as overtaxed by excessive bureaucratic and administrative requirements, and elevating the head of Air Force Global Strike Command, which oversees the Air Force’s nuclear forces, from a three- to a four-star rank. Hagel also said the Defense Department will request a 10 percent annual increase in funding for nuclear weapons over the next five years. This will come on top of the $15-16 billion the department currently spends annually on the weapons.

    Hagel, who announced his resignation on Nov. 24, emphasized the “critical role” nuclear weapons play in U.S. national security. “No other capability we have is more important,” he said.

    The newly completed analyses are the sixth and seventh reviews of the nuclear enterprise the Defense Department has undertaken since 2007, when a B-52 bomber was mistakenly flown across the United States with six nuclear-armed, air-launched cruise missiles on board.

    Hagel said that earlier reviews “were implemented without the necessary follow-through to assess that they were implemented effectively.” He pledged that senior department leaders would ensure that the new recommendations are being effectively implemented.

    Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced on Nov. 14 the results of two reviews of the Defense Department’s management of nuclear weapons and the steps the department is taking to address the numerous setbacks.

    Islamic State Accused of Chlorine Use

    December 2014

    By Jefferson Morley

    The Islamic State militant group used chlorine bombs in attacks in Iraq in September and October, according to news reports still under investigation by the U.S. government.

    “We are aware of the reports but cannot confirm details and are seeking additional information,” a State Department official said in a Dec. 1 e-mail to Arms Control Today.

    The Associated Press cited three Iraqi officials as saying that the Islamic State group used bombs with chlorine-filled cylinders during clashes in the towns of Dhuluiya and Balad, north of Baghdad, on Sept. 15. Approximately 40 soldiers and Shiite militiamen experienced difficulty breathing, according to the report.

    An Iraqi commander in Anbar province told local media outlets quoted by the Iran Daily, which is published by Iran’s Islamic Republic News Agency, that Islamic State militants “fired seven shells filled with chlorine” into a residential area on Oct. 22. No casualties were reported.

    “We continue to take all allegations of [chemical weapons] use—and in particular these recent allegations regarding the use of chlorine as a chemical weapon—very seriously,” Alistair Baskey, a spokesman for the U.S. National Security Council, said in an Oct. 23 statement.

    On Sept. 10, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) reported with “a high degree of confidence” that “chlorine, either pure or in mixture,” was used in a series of attacks in Syria last May. (See ACT, October 2014.) An OPCW fact-finding mission did not assign responsibility for the attacks, which the Syrian government and the rebel groups fighting to overthrow it, including the Islamic State, have blamed on each other. But OPCW investigators reported that “witnesses invariably connected the devices to helicopters flying overhead.” The rebels are not known to have helicopters.

    The Islamic State militant group used chlorine bombs in attacks in Iraq in September and October, according to news reports still under investigation by the U.S. government.

    Missile Defense Test Scrapped

    December 2014

    By Kingston Reif

    The Defense Department said it no longer plans to conduct a flight-intercept test of the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system scheduled for next summer.

    Richard Lehner, a spokesman for the department’s Missile Defense Agency, told InsideDefense.com in October that the test has been replaced with “a developmental non-intercept test” designed to assess interceptor “thruster performance” and “improved discrimination performance.” In a Dec. 2 e-mail to Arms Control Today, Lehner said this test would “provid[e] data that will improve and enhance system reliability.”

    The GMD system is designed to protect the United States from limited missile attacks by Iran and North Korea. A total of 30 interceptors are currently deployed in Alaska and California. The Pentagon is planning to deploy an additional 14 interceptors in Alaska by the end of 2017.

    Plagued by cost overruns and test failures, the system successfully intercepted a target in a June 22 test. This was the first successful intercept test since 2008 and the first using the Capability Enhancement II (CE-II) kill vehicle. (See ACT, July/August 2014.) The kill vehicle sits atop the booster rocket and is intended to collide with a target in outer space.

    The test that was canceled was scheduled to be another intercept test of the CE-II. Laura Grego, a senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, wrote in a Nov. 3 blog post that the decision to scrap that exercise could mean that the June 22 test “was not as successful as assumed.” Grego noted that the next intercept test of the GMD system now is not scheduled until the summer of 2016, leaving a two-year gap between intercept attempts.

    In a Nov. 22 e-mail to Arms Control Today, Philip Coyle, former director of weapons testing for the Defense Department, said that, with the test cancellation, “the GMD program will be in limbo for years longer, lacking regular, contemporary flight intercept test results to guide development.”

    The Defense Department said it no longer plans to conduct a flight-intercept test of the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system scheduled for next summer.

    Pages

    Subscribe to RSS - December 2014