On suicide, riot control and ‘other peaceful purposes’ under the BTWC

Posted: April 11, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Biological, Chemical | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

In the Greater Manchester area a 16-year old boy stands trial for having tried to buy 10 milligrams of abrin on the dark web. Abrin is a toxin found in the seeds of Abrus precatorius, otherwise known as jequirity or rosary pea.

UK authorities arrested him in February and have charged him under the Biological Weapons Act 1974 and Criminal Attempts Act 1981. In particular, the charge refers to the General Purpose Criterion (GPC) as framed in Article I of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) and transposed into British criminal law. As reported in The Guardian on 19 February:

The full charge against the boy is that between 24 December 2014 and 16 February 2015 he attempted to acquire a biological toxin or agent of a type and in a quantity that has no justification or prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purpose, namely Abrin.

The maximum sentence for the offence is life imprisonment.

During the trial the boy’s defence argued that he sought to buy the toxin to commit suicide. Under those circumstances, possession of abrin could technically have been for ‘peaceful purposes’, so the defence argued to have the charges dropped.

Judge Khalid Jamil Qureshi dismissed the claim:

The question is whether suicide is peaceful. Suicide, by definition, is an act of violence, so the defence will not be applicable.

By which he opposes ‘peaceful’ to ‘violence’, rather than the idea of ‘war’ or ‘armed conflict’ more prevalent in the disarmament communities and intended by the BTWC negotiators.

This is the second recent case—the other one was Bond versus the United States, which went twice to the US Supreme Court—in which a domestic criminal trial causes a judge to interpret key terms in a national law that originated with a disarmament treaty. Especially since there has been a growing debate on the understanding of ‘compliance’ with disarmament and arms control treaties and an emphasis on national implementation of such treaties to counter terrorist threats, these domestic court cases raise questions about how domestic judgements may begin to affect common understanding of treaty obligations and expectations. Depending on the legal system, judgements may be precedent-setting. However, whichever may be the case, the interpretations apply to the country in question only. Divergencies about compliance expectations over time are therefore not beyond imagination.

The law enforcement debate

One area where domestic legal interpretation of concepts derived from multilateral disarmament treaties may have profound impact is that of law enforcement. The BTWC and the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) proscribe the use of infective agents, toxins and toxic chemicals as methods of warfare. The CWC, however, does not consider riot control agents, toxic chemicals that by definition cease to have an impact on the target as soon as exposure stops, to be chemical weapons if used for law enforcement purposes (including domestic riot control). The BTWC contains no similar provision.

Last October I wrote a blog contribution on the use of pepper spray in new naval anti-piracy tactics. My main question then was how the authority for the release of the agent under the CWC could be determined. Under the proposed scenarios, nationals from different parties to the CWC operating outside the territory of their own country would likely be involved in any such chain of decisions. Moreover, private security companies might be in charge of safeguarding ships threatened by pirates. Some comments to the blog contribution (posted to Arms Control Law) pointed out that under different international treaties, including the Law of the Sea, authority to take action against pirates is clearer. So, the matter becomes an issue of fragmentation in international law.

In my subsidiary question I wondered whether the use of pepper spray (which involves a toxin) could fall under ‘other peaceful purposes’ in Article I of the BTWC. Indeed, the BTWC does not specifically list law enforcement as an authorised purpose. To the best of my knowledge, law enforcement has never been listed as an additional understanding of the rest category of ‘other peaceful purposes’. The issue is less clear and government officials tend to avoid answering that question.

However, in light of Judge Qureshi’s argument, the use of violence (rather than the application as a method of warfare) contradicts the ‘peaceful purpose’ criterion. So, applying a toxin to deny pirates access to a ship would amount to a violation of the BTWC. If this is the case, then what to think of the experiments in India to deploy drones armed with pepper spray for crowd control? Under the CWC, perhaps yes, but the BTWC?

Keep thinking. Keep thinking.

Nuclear outrage!

Posted: March 15, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Biological, Chemical, Nuclear | Tags: , , , | 2 Comments

[Cross-posted from The Trench]

In its situation report of 11 March 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) tallies a death toll of 9,961 out of 24,247 cases (41% mortality rate) in the three West-African countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. While the overall rate of new infections seems to be slowing down, the numbers nevertheless continue to rise. Infectious disease is the greatest threat to mankind, far higher than any imaginable terrorist plot. According to WHO statistics from about 10 years ago, infectious diseases are responsible for over 13 million deaths worldwide each year. That is 25% of all deaths worldwide each year. Distribution across the planet is highly uneven: in developing countries that percentage rises to half of all deaths. What does more than 13 million fatalities per year represent? Well, it corresponds more or less to the number of people who died in the Twin Towers on 9/11 every two hours.

This already intolerable situation is likely to get worse with global warming. Emerging and re-emerging diseases are already wreaking havoc not just in developing, but increasingly also in developed countries. Disease vectors are migrating to what used to be more temperate zones and ever increasing numbers of people are at risk of infection. Globalisation implies more human interactions across the planet. The speed of travel today means that a person can pick up an infection at one end of the world and be back home before the symptoms begin to manifest themselves. This requires drastic action and it is a moral imperative for humanity to prevent this kind of catastrophe from materialising. We must consider drastic measures.

One tool the international community may consider are small tactical nuclear devices, not to be used in anger, but to eradicate any ground zero of an epidemic so as to prevent the further spread of the disease. The advantage is that the technology exists and that this technology is not prohibited by any treaty. Being a small nuclear device, the radiation effects would be limited to a small area and the fireball would eradicate any bacterium or virus in its immediate surroundings. While I can see that people may be shocked by my suggestion, I repeat that those nuclear devices would not be detonated as part of an aggression. Quite on the contrary, the idea actually represents the first practical application of ‘peaceful nuclear explosions’ directly beneficial to humanity. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty must be considered among the greatest successes of the international community. Many people would probably rather not even consider rescinding these conventions to proliferate such small nuclear devices. But as bad as they are, an epidemic with a highly contagious disease can be even worse, certainly much worse than anything we think terrorists can inflict upon us.

Outraged? I bet you are!

Such a scenario is exactly what Mr Seth Baum outlines in two presentations—a featured column on the website of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and a pre-print version of a journal article to be published in the April edition of Contemporary Security Policy—and defends in several replies to online comments and tweets. The only difference is his absolute desire to prevent a nuclear winter instead of a global health pandemic. To achieve his wish he proposes to replace most of the nuclear weapons in the global arsenals with other weapon categories that can equally maintain effective deterrence. Among those weapons categories he includes biological (BW) and chemical weapons (CW), despite the fact that the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) and the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) outlaw these weapon categories under any and all circumstances. Not just use, but also their acquisition and possession.

Of course, the author does not call for the abrogation of the BTWC and CWC. But he is clearly conflicted, so he frames the appeal in an indirect way, thus shirking from the consequences of his thoughts (p. 12):

The Biological and Chemical Weapons Conventions must be considered among the greatest successes of the international community. Many people would probably rather not even consider rescinding these conventions  to re-proliferate these weapons.

But he immediately adds the following two sentences:

But as bad as [CBW] are, nuclear winter means that nuclear weapons can be even worse. The exception is contagious biological weapons, which could also cause global catastrophe and thus would not qualify as a safer deterrent […].

In other words, CW and non-contagious BW—Mr Baum names anthrax and ricin as examples—are fine. He even turns the CBW taboo on its head to support the deterrence argument (p. 13):

There is something extra about these […] types of weapons that give them a major stigma, to the point of even being considered taboo. To the extent that these weapons cause additional fear, as they clearly did after the 2001 anthrax attacks, it only makes them more powerful as a deterrent.

(Thanks al Qaeda; arrgh, Hatfield; oops, Ivens … well, did the FBI get it finally right? … for strengthening deterrence.)

And if you did not yet grasp his point about deterrence, Mr Baum gets an old cliché out of the cupboard: CBW are sometimes known as ‘the poor man’s atomic bomb’.

Should you still hesitate about the rationality of Mr Baum’s argument, the opening paragraph of the pre-print article must surely take any doubts away (p. 1, emphasis added):

Nuclear weapon states should pursue winter-safe deterrence both because it helps (or at least does not significantly hurt) their national security and because it is morally the right thing to do. This is ethics with strategy […].

Major failing of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

The Bulletin contribution, in contrast, is short and outlines some elements of Mr Baum’s argument. Whether one agrees or not with his nuclear winter-free deterrence concept and vision on how to realise it can be the subject of discussion, as indeed it has been in the Bulletin’s comments section.

In the penultimate paragraph he argues that ‘non-contagious biological weapons’ is one of the weapon categories that stands out to organise nuclear winter-free deterrence. Here Mr Baum does not elaborate, nor does he reflect on possible consequences of the suggestion. (CW are strangely absent from the column.) Any person dealing with BW disarmament immediately realises that the idea is tantamount to repealing the BTWC. Indeed, the prohibition in the BTWC covers all pathogens irrespective of whether they are contagious or not. Moreover, the prohibition on their application is the default position; any authorised application is limited to the listed permitted purposes in Article I. Over the years states parties have made it abundantly clear that in their common understanding of that article, deterrence is not one of the ‘other peaceful purposes’, however vague that rest category may be.

The BW angle in the Bulletin column has elicited at least two blog contributions, one by Kathryn Millett of BioSecure and one at BioChem Security 2030 . In a Twitter reply to the online discussions, Mr Baum emphasises that the BTWC ‘must be considered among the greatest successes of the international community’, as stated in his pre-publication paper. But as said above, that generous thought does not offset the basic fact that his reasoning calls for major violation of that treaty.

The other question is why during the editorial process the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists did not take exception to the author’s call for breaching a major disarmament treaty. BioChem Security 2030 challenges the publication regarding its responsibilities head on, and I support their points fully. No need for a repeat here.

The controversy, however, may point to a deeper, growing problem. Online presence is becoming a goal in its own right. For some think tanks and advocacy groups, rising above the clutter must be achieved irrespective the substance of the message. Catchy titles, vile pictures, etc. are part and parcel of the process, irrespective of the contents of a contribution. PR people or media savvy operators run that part of the show. For an online column somebody inside the organisation will perhaps give the manuscript a read through, but mostly to check that the posting will not conflict with any institutional goals or sponsors. However, a review of the substance, factual correctness of data, or deeper implications of a particular assertion is all but absent. Moreover—and this is very clear from the Twitter replies I and other critics of the column got from the Bulletin—those operators perceive the controversy as a positive thing, because it ratchets up the website visit statistics. However, the score comes at a cost, namely diminished integrity.

In this particular case: how could a Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists even allow a suggestion that it is OK to violate a major disarmament treaty? Surely, the enormity of what Mr Baum proposes is clear from the intro to this blog posting.

My other question: why has thus far nobody from the nuclear arms control community challenged the proposition to replace nuclear deterrence with the threat of retaliation with bugs (and poisons)?

Outraged? You bet I am.

Syria’s CW disarmament: spill-over effects for Middle East?

Posted: March 13, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Chemical | Tags: , , , , , | 1 Comment

Using the Momentum of Syria’s Chemical Weapons Dismantlement and Identifying Spill-Over Potentials

Discussion note prepared for:  Academic Peace Orchestra – Middle East (APOME), Tackling the Middle East WMD/DVs Arsenals in the Context of Military Asymmetries Towards Zonal Disarmament, Berlin, 11–12 March 2015

[Cross-posted from The Trench]

Introduction

  • Syria acceded to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) on 14 September 2013 and formally became a state party on 14 October. This was the outcome of a framework agreement on the elimination of Syria’s chemical warfare capacities between Russia and the United States reached in Geneva on 14 September. This accord averted military strikes by France, the United Kingdom and the United States as reprisal for the use of chemical weapons (CW) in the Syrian civil war. In particular the attacks against the Damascus suburb of Ghouta on 21 August represented a major escalation in the conflict. The sarin nerve agent killed hundreds of people and injured many more. At the time of the attacks a UN team comprising experts from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) were in Damascus in response to an earlier request by the Syrian government to investigate alleged CW use during the spring of 2013. After modification of its mandate, it investigated the Ghouta attacks and issued their preliminary report on 16 September, two days after the Geneva accord. The findings all but blamed the Syrian government. The team submitted its final report covering all chemical warfare allegations from the original mandate as well as some additional attacks after the Ghouta incident on 12 December.
  • After becoming a party to the CWC the verification activities have consisted of four types of activities:
    • Syrian declarations on CW holdings, CW-relevant infrastructure (production and storage sites), and on the history of its chemical warfare programme since 1 January 1946. Given the special circumstances that have led the country to accede to the convention, Syria was requested and has (or is in the process of ) providing information on the destruction of CW before becoming a CWC party. As illustrated by the cases of France and Iran, a state party is not normally required to declare this type of information. However, in order to ensure that Syria is not hiding secret stashes of CW, the requested data contribute to establishing a baseline for its past capacities.
    • The OPCW verifies those declarations, resolves anomalies and where required requests amendments to those declarations.
    • The OPCW conducted inspections at the declared production and storage sites. It oversaw the removal of chemical warfare and precursor agents from Syrian territory and the destruction of delivery means, relevant equipment and installations, and precursor chemicals. It also oversaw the hydrolysis of mustard agent and the neutralisation of a range of precursor chemicals aboard the US vessel Cape Ray in the Mediterranean and the destruction of the resulting effluents in incinerators in Finland, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States. At present the OPCW is also overseeing the destruction of the former Syrian CW production facilities. To date, two out of twelve buildings have been destroyed and completion of this task is envisaged for this summer.
    • The OPCW carried out field investigations into the alleged use of chlorine during the spring and summer of 2014.
  • This background note discusses some unique features of the disarmament regime for Syria and their potential relevancy for the Middle East Zone free from non-conventional weapons.

Adaptation to specific circumstances

  • Nobody anticipated that the OPCW would ever have to evacuate CW from a state party under conditions of war. Such a situation never occurred before. Even the disarmament of Iraq during the 1990s took place after a cease-fire agreement, endorsed by the UN Security Council Resolution 687 (1991). Syria joined the CWC as a CW possessor state, which was also a first after the treaty-defined destruction deadlines had expired. As a consequence, the responsibility to determine Syria’s interim and final destruction deadlines fell to the Executive Council. Its decision of 27 September 2013 was an adaptation of the US-Russian framework agreement. That same night the UN Security Council endorsed the decision in Resolution 2118 (2013). However, given the virtual impossibility to destroy the CW inside a country at war and the extremely tight deadline to complete destruction operations, the EC adopted several exceptional measures in a second decision of 15 November, none of which are precedent-setting.
  • A first major departure from the standard CWC process concerns the initial declaration. Under Article III this document is due within 30 days after the convention enters into force for a state party and establishes a baseline for the country’s status as CW possessor, plans for the destruction of CW and related installations if so required, a description of any CW-related activities after 1 January 1945, the types of chemical facilities on its territory and the types and quantities of treaty-relevant chemicals they produce. Following that submission OPCW inspectors will verify the accuracy of the initial declaration, upon which the state party can submit amendments if so required. In practice OPCW staff will assist a country preparing to join the CWC with compiling the initial declaration and other measures to be undertaken (e.g., national legislation). In the case of Syria inspectors entered the country even before it had formally become a state party (i.e., 30 days after accession) and such an initial declaration was submitted. The Syrian government had agreed to the accelerated pace. While it enabled the OPCW to quickly secure key CW sites that were accessible (some were in combat zones or under the control of insurgents), prepare inventories and render the delivery systems and special equipment useless, it also created a situation in which the OPCW received a lot of information piecemeal. Combined with the chaos of war, Syrian claims of poor bureaucratic administration of the chemical programmes and quite possibly reluctance to cooperate in full, this led to quite a few corrections of the initial declaration and submission of fresh data. Within the Technical Secretariat a small Declaration Assessment Team was set up to raise questions based on the initial declaration, to identify the gaps, find discrepancies, and so on, in order to correct the declaration. In this way, the OPCW has been able and is still continuing to develop the full picture of Syria’s past CW capacities and programmes.
  • Under the terms of Article IV of the CWC, each state party remains the owner of the CW thatmust be destroyed, destroys those CW on its own territory, and pays for the destruction operations and the OPCW verification activities.Given the inability to destroy the CW inside a country at war and the extremely tight deadline to complete destruction operations, the EC adopted several exceptional measures, none of which are precedent-setting:
    • With the exception of one precursor chemical that had to be destroyed in-country, all warfare agents and other precursors were evacuated by sea from Syria.
    • Once they had left the territory, the international community as represented by the OPCW assumed responsibility for the toxic substances. The legal status of the weapons outside of Syria, and therefore the liability in case of a mishap, was never precisely determined.
    • The toxic substances were neutralised or hydrolysed aboard the specially adapted US vessel Cape Ray in the Mediterranean, and then transferred to commercial incinerators in Finland, the United Kingdom and the United States and a dedicated CW destruction facility in Germany.
    • Both the UN and the OPCW set up special trust funds to finance the operation as Syria claimed to be unable to pay for the destruction and verification costs. Many countries offered funds or contributed in kind.
  • The Executive Council vested the OPCW Director-General with the authority to launch a procedure similar in purpose to the challenge inspection, but without many of the procedural formalities detailed in the in the CWC. His decision was to follow a request by a state party and a personal judgement as to the seriousness of the allegation based on information supplied by the requesting state party. He could redirect inspectors working in Syria to the designated site of alleged treaty violation. Despite the difficulties in implementing the decisions regarding the CW disarmament in Syria and the many accusations of procrastination and incomplete declarations, nobody has so far requested such a special inspection.
  • For the time being Syria remains under a special disarmament regime and it may still take one or two years, depending on the level of cooperation from Damascus, before the country can become a ‘normal’ state party. Nobody can presently affirm the way in which the transition to normalcy will take place, but the assumption is that both the Executive Council and the UN Security Council will have to take decisions to that effect.
  • OPCW decisions were endorsed by the UN Security Council, which had also insisted on a role for the UN. (The OPCW is not one of the UN organisations.) In order to coordinate negotiations and assess various risk factors related to the inspections, preparation of transportation and the movement of the chemical substances across Syria to the northern port of Latakia, the OPCW-UN Joint Mission was established. (It completed its mandate on 30 September 2014.) Its head reported to both the OPCW and the UN Security Council.

The emerging challenge of opportunistic use of toxic industrial chemicals

  • Opportunistic use of toxic industrial chemicals occurs when a particular entity resorts to a mode of chemical warfare using toxic chemicals that are readily available at a chemical plant or storage site, but does not undertake steps to develop and produce such weapons. The types of agent thus used can range from extremely common chemical substances, such as chlorine (often used in liquid form for water purification), to compounds such as insecticides and pesticides that, just like sarin or VX, belong to the family organophosphates. A typical characteristic of opportunistic use of toxic chemicals is that the attacks cease as soon as stores have been depleted or access to other sources of supply cut off. Delivery is extremely crude, but some indicators suggest a development process for dissemination devices may take place to enhance the impact of the attacks.
  • Through the spring and summer of 2014 there were several reports of chlorine strikes in Syria. Barrel bombs filled with liquid chlorine were dropped on villages from helicopters, strongly suggesting that government forces were responsible for them. As chlorine (or any other toxic chemical) falls under the General Purpose Criterion (GPC) of the CWC, any use as a method of warfare is prohibited. With Syria a state party to the CWC, the OPCW launched an investigation of alleged use. The fact-finding mission arrived in Damascus on 3 May, five days after its creation by the OPCW Director-General. During an onsite investigation on 27 May the team’s vehicle convoy was hit by an explosive device and came under fire. While this part of the mission had to be discontinued, the investigators were able to collate considerable data by means of other techniques, including victim and witness interviews, analysis of medical records and discussions with medical staff, and the analysis of flight paths of helicopters and correlating them to the precise time and site of the barrel bomb attack. It presented three reports in June, September and December 2014. On 4 February 2015 the OPCW Executive Council’s decision formally determined that chlorine had been used as a method of warfare and condemned the acts as a major breach of the CWC. Even though the conclusion did not identify the culprit, it is clear that as a state party Syria bears responsibility for preventing any violation on its territory.
  • Other allegations of opportunistic use of toxic chemicals attributing responsibility to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) emerged during the second half of 2014. One such claim related to the intense fighting at Avdiko village, 12 km east of Kobani in northern Syria; the other incidents came from Iraq. These occurrences pose a special problem under the CWC. While a state party is responsible for the implementation of the CWC on its territory, the reported events took place in areas not under the control by the government. Moreover the way the alleged use was described in Avdiko, both the perpetrator and the victims were non-state actors, a situation that may potentially create a legal and practical vacuum. Under the terms of the CWC (Verification Annex, Part XI, §27), if use has been alleged on territory not under the control by the government of a state party, then the UN Secretary-General’s mechanism will apply. However, in view of the attacks on the OPCW investigative team in May 2014 and the reliance on the Syrian military for the security and safety of UN and OPCW personnel inside Syria, the question arises how a UN investigation would be able to access an area of intense fighting in which the government military play no role. Thus far no concrete ideas suggestion an international military force to be inserted into a UN member state for the sole purpose of protecting an investigative team have been put forward.

Concluding thoughts

  • The arrangements made to enable the CW elimination in Syria are not precedent-setting. However, the whole process has demonstrated a willingness by the OPCW members to approach difficult and exceptional circumstances in a practical way and they have taken several decisions that deviated significantly from the letter of the CWC. This leads to a cautious optimism that if the international community were to request specific types of assistance in support of a nascent zone free of non-conventional weapons in the Middle East, the OPCW might agree.
  • However, any such optimism would dissipate fast if there were no serious indications that the two countries not yet party to the CWC—Egypt and Israel—were to show no inclination of acceding or ratifying the convention. After all, in Syria’s case inventiveness was also stimulated by the fact that on the same day Russia and the United States announced their joint framework agreement, Damascus deposited its instrument of accession with the UN Secretary-General and agreed to collaborating with the Technical Secretariat of the OPCW even before the treaty became legally binding on it. This fact alone already deviated from the standard process as foreseen in the CWC.
  • If Egypt and Israel were to embark on a range of CBM-types of activities to enhance transparency with regard to past and present CW activities and issues of concern, then the OPCW might be open to assist the process in a discrete fashion.
  • Particularly in view of the many emotional reactions to events in the Middle East, any scenario of OPCW involvement would require strong common purpose between Russia and the US, and at least tacit endorsement of their initiatives by the other P-5 members.
  • Other than that, the Syrian CW disarmament effort may well remain a truly exceptional case of international collaboration under exceptional circumstances with little bearing on other situations in the Middle East.
  • With ISIL moving into Egypt, a scenario of opportunistic use of toxic chemicals in that country cannot be wholly discounted. By staying outside of the CWC, Cairo denies itself certain international tools of assistance and cooperation that could help to counter the threat or mitigate the consequences of such an attack.

Chlorine: A weapon of last resort for ISIL? (Part 2)

Posted: February 17, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Chemical | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

[Cross-posted from The Trench.]

From September 2014 on several reports have alleged chlorine use by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Iraq. The claims began shortly after the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) had released its first report on its investigation into the chlorine attacks in Syria earlier in the year. In a politically highly charged atmosphere in which supporters and opponents of the regime of President Bashir al-Assad use any incident to blame insurgent forces of atrocities or call for regime change, one must necessarily view accusations of chemical warfare with a healthy dose of scepticism. This is particularly the case if allegations disappear as quickly as they surface.

However, during the autumn of last year there was some consistency in the albeit irregular reports. Furthermore, on 10 February, OPCW Director-General Ahmet Üzümcü confirmed that the Iraqi authorities had notified the OPCW of chlorine gas attacks against Iraqi soldiers. At present it is not known which steps, if any, the OPCW will undertake with regard to these allegations.

Last October I described how al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), a precursor organisation to ISIL, applied chlorine in a campaign of car bombings between October 2006 and June 2007. While many people in the vicinity of the detonation required medical treatment for exposure to the agent, nobody was actually killed by the gas. This posting looks into the various allegations of insurgent chlorine attacks in Syria and Iraq since 2013.

Read the rest of this entry »

Wow! Did the OPCW really say that?

Posted: December 13, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Chemical | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

[Cross-posted from The Trench]

It is true that pressure for Israel to join the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) is steadily mounting. Presently 190 states are party to the treaty. Besides Israel, only Angola, Egypt, Myanmar, North Korea and South Sudan have not ratified or acceded to it. As participants in the 2014 Jonathan Tucker Conference on Chemical and Biological Arms Control heard yesterday from Dr Peter Sawzcak, Head of Government Relations and Political Affairs Branch of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Myanmar is expected to ratify the CWC in its forthcoming parliamentary session in January. The Council of Ministers of Angola, which will take up a non-permanent seat in the UN Security Council next year, is to decide on joining the Arms Trade Treaty, Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, and CWC really soon. South Sudan may also become a party to the CWC in the near future as part of a broader package deal under development. As was pointed out by some other speakers at the Jonathan Tucker Conference, being in the company of North Korea is not good for a democracy such as Israel.

However, in an article published on 11 December the Times of Israel quoted an anonymous OPCW official affirming that Israel has a chemical weapon (CW) stockpile. He also stated that he knew the size of the chemical arsenal, but refused to go into details. According to a second article in Arutz Sheva Israel Radio quoted the official as saying that the UN needed to begin an investigation of Israel on its chemical weapons stores, as it did with Syria.

According to the Times of Israel, he also said that Egypt has thousands of tonnes of CW.

Israel is a CWC signatory state. Under Article 18 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties a signatory state is obliged to refrain from acts which would defeat the object and purpose of a treaty. In other words, if Israel were indeed to have a CW stockpile, it would be in a clear breach of its international obligations. This is not a light accusation to make. Particularly if it is made in the name of the multilateral organisation that is responsible for ridding the world of these heinous weapons.

Striking too is the lack of nuance in the claims. Egypt and Israel have had past CW programmes. But in the absence of reports of troop training and testing of munitions, how useful is it to retain aging stockpiles? Would the agents be subject to degradation? Are stocks being replenished (which implies active CW production facilities)? Egypt’s ‘thousands of tonnes’ puts the country in the same league as Iraq under Saddam Hussein and North Korea (according to South Korean assessments) and well ahead of what has been removed from Syria over the past eighteen months. Mohamed Heikal, an Egyptian journalist and commentator on Arab affairs, described in his excellent book Illusions of Triumph: Arab View of the Gulf War (London: Fontana, 1993, pp. 91–93) how then Egyptian President Anwar Sadat closed down Egypt’s CW production plant after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war and in 1981 refused to reopen it to supply Saddam Hussein with CW. To the best of my knowledge, this passage has not yet been seriously challenged.

Considering the culture of confidentiality at the OPCW and the organisation’s systematic refusal to comment on individual states—just take the many anodyne press statements on the CW disarmament project in Syria—the incident is remarkable to say the least. One would hope that those specific assertions were intended to be wholly off the record, but even so…

 Update

OPCW Statement Regarding Israeli Media Reports on a Recent OPCW Briefing
Thursday, 11 December 2014

OPCW officials met with a group of journalists from Israel on Monday of this week and briefed them on the OPCW’s work, achievements and future challenges. On the issue of achieving universality of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), it was mentioned to the journalists that there are six non-States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention, including Israel.

In regard to the capacities of those six countries, it was clearly stated that the CWC verification regime functions on the basis of declarations, and that the OPCW would be able to ascertain possession of chemical weapons by any non-State Party only after it joined the Convention and made a formal declaration to the Organisation.

Engaging Israel on CWC Ratification – Part 1: Outsider Perspectives

Posted: November 24, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Chemical | Tags: , , , , , | 1 Comment

[Cross-posted from The Trench]

The Israeli Disarmament Movement together with the Chemical Weapons Convention Coalition (CWCC) and Green Cross convened two days of roundtable discussions on Chemical Weapons, Israel and the Middle East in Tel Aviv. The third day, 12 November, a briefing was held in the Knesset. In a region where (existential) security and the nuclear weapons stand central to any debate on arms control strategies, the exclusive focus on chemical weapons (CW) was a rare occurrence.

The meeting goals were twofold: promote ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) by Israel and to have Israel take a more positive stance in the diplomatic engagements to establish a zone free of non-conventional weaponry in the Middle East. The conveners viewed CWC ratification as a potential significant step towards achieving the latter goal.

Each day had different ambitions. Day 1 sought to broaden knowledge of CW issues and the functioning of the CWC among a diverse group of Israeli civil society constituencies and  reporters. Day 2 followed Track II approach, engaging representatives from Israeli academic institutions and think tanks, and other policy shapers. On the final day the invited speakers briefed parliamentarians in the Knesset.

This report summarises external arguments why Israel should ratify the CWC. The next posting will focus on Israeli views.

Read the rest of this entry »

Üzümcü: “After Syria I do not see any country able to use chemical weapons anymore”

Posted: November 17, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Chemical | Tags: , , , , , | 3 Comments

[Cross-posted from The Trench.]

The last day of October, a sunny Friday in The Hague, I met with Ambassador Ahmet Üzümcü to reflect on the previous year and a half, during which the civil war in Syria suddenly thrust the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) into the spotlight.

In March 2013 United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon requested technical assistance from the OPCW to investigate alleged chemical weapon (CW) use in the war-torn country. Six months later, after a serious incident in which sarin nerve agent killed and poisoned many hundreds of people in the Ghouta district of Damascus, Syria unexpectedly joined the Chemical Weapons Convention. And so began an urgent and perilous disarmament project. The announcement that the OPCW was to receive the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize just knocked international expectations from the organisation several notches higher.

The Syrian disarmament project has had a clear impact on the OPCW. Not just on its daily operations during the past 18 months, but it will also affect its future. However, the key question is whether the OPCW’s success in trying circumstances can inspire the international community to revive disarmament as a security tool.

Syria’s CW precursors have been evacuated and are almost all destroyed. Destruction of former CW production facilities has now begun. What were you thinking last year when you accepted the tight deadlines in the US–Russian Geneva Framework Agreement?

The Framework Agreement reached in Geneva on 14 September of last year was a significant achievement. The Russians and Americans wrapped up their negotiations in four days, which surprised us as much as the whole international community. We knew that the OPCW could be called on to address the chemical part of the Syrian conflict. In which form and under which conditions, we did not know then. Even so we were prepared to get involved and if necessary, to take the lead, all the while knowing such a project would be very challenging.

We first saw this document on 14 September. On 27 September, the Executive Council decided on OPCW involvement and a few hours later the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) endorsed that decision. Between both dates, we had 13 days to prepare our team for deployment to Damascus, work out the modalities, and so on. Having said that, I should add that the Technical Secretariat had been preparing itself for several contingencies. They included possible investigation of alleged CW use. We were thus ready when in March 2013 the UN Secretary-General called upon our expertise. In September, we had a team of 60 volunteer inspectors ready to go to Syria. They had trained to carry out different tasks.

Still, I was following the Geneva talks from Beijing. The negotiators raised questions whether we would be ready to do this or that. Our responses were all positive. We looked at our gaps. We identified a few areas where we would need some additional support, so we decided to rehire some of our former experts and hire some external experts. Important to us was to act swiftly and diligently. We also had to demonstrate to the international community that after 16 years the OPCW had the necessary capacity and expertise. I think we succeeded.

As I said, on Friday, 27 September, the decision was taken here. The same day the UNSC endorsed it in a resolution. On Monday, our inspectors were on their way. On Tuesday, they arrived in Damascus. The UN clearly had some difficulties to match this pace. The UN mechanism is huge compared to ours. So I called Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday, the day before the UNSC decision. I told him that we were ready to deploy and asked him for logistical and security support, which we received. Despite the magnitude of the challenge and the security situation in Syria, I think the Technical Secretariat was fully prepared to lead. When I say ‘lead’, I of course refer to the technical part of the operation. We relied on the UN for logistical support and security.

The other obvious challenge was the financial dimension. In that respect, having seen the support from the whole international community for this Russian–US initiative, I actually did not have any concerns. It was proven later on that we would have the necessary funds in both the UN and the OPCW Trust Funds. Financial aspects would not be problematic and they never were.

A year ago, I should say, we were both mentally and physically prepared to go to Syria. I personally was involved in setting up a task force, which I chaired every morning on the 7th floor of the OPCW headquarters. This also gave me the opportunity to know better some of our staff members. They were really capable and pleased to be able to help coordinate such a major operational mission.

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New naval anti-piracy tactics – pepper spray and “domestic” riot control

Posted: October 14, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Chemical | Tags: , , , , | 13 Comments

[Cross-posted from The Trench]

Yesterday the Smithsonian “Smartnews” site featured the article Robot Ships And Pepper Spray—the Latest in Pirate-Fighting Tech. According to the piece, UK researchers are actively looking into mobilising capsaicin – the active ingredient in pepper spray – to fend off pirate attacks at sea:

[…]

The age of naval battles between huge ships on the high seas seems to have passed into distant memory. Instead, some of the most devastating attacks on giant vessels in recent years have been executed by boats small enough to get through the larger ships’ defenses.

But now, governments around the world are working on technology designed to stop these attacks. In the U.K, researchers are working on a remote monitoring system—called the MATRiX system—that resituates the traditional responsibilities of a lookout to land-bound control rooms. The system has a connected network of anti-pirate deterrents attached to the outside of the ship. If a threat is detected, the deterrant [sic] system releases two relatively simple tools—nets that will catch in the propellers of attacking boats and a fog of capsaicin, the active ingredient in pepper spray (and bear repellent).

[…]

My question is: how does that fit with international law?

It stretches the understanding of non-prohibited purposes as defined in Article II, §9(d) of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which allows the use of riot control agents for law enforcement purposes, including domestic riot control. The concept of “law enforcement” is vague in the CWC and efforts are underway to clarify the notion in the context of various research and development activities concerning incapacitants.

In this particular case, however, it seems that not even law enforcement officials would  the responsible for the decision to release the capsaicin against pirates (unless they are the ones sitting in “land-bound control rooms”). The afore-mentioned article suggests that the device would be deployed by the  merchant ship under attack. Even if law enforcement officials would be at some land-based centre, would they be able to override the captain’s authority or would they just give the captain the green light to activate the system when needed? If the captain must call in authorisation from land, what country’s jurisdiction would come into play? The country under whose flag the ship is sailing? The country on whose territory the control rooms are located? The country whose nationality the law enforcement officials possess?

In light of the ongoing privatisation of security (who actually uses force to defend the ships against attacks? who sits in the land-based control rooms?), the blurring of boundaries between armed conflict and counter-terrorism / -crime operations, and the banalisation of riot control agents, it would appear that legal clarity about this new contraption should be established by the relevant national authorities and the international community (represented by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons—OPCW).

Having said that, capsaicin is a toxin—a poison produced by a living organism. As such the legitimacy of its application is also covered by the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC). That treaty does not distinguish between whether the compound was derived from the chili pepper or produced synthetically. More importantly, however, the BTWC does not make an exception for law enforcement purposes. This leaves the question as to whether “law enforcement” can be considered to be one of the “other peaceful purposes” in Article I.

As it stands now, nobody has really been able to give me a sound explanation why the provisions of the CWC should supersede those of the BTWC.

I am open to good legal arguments.

Threat posed by Islamic State’s capture of Iraq’s Muthanna CW site

Posted: September 29, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Chemical | Tags: , , , , , , | 3 Comments

In a letter dated 7 July 2014 Iraqi Ambassador to the United Nations Mohamed Ali Alhakim notified UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that ‘armed terrorist groups’ had entered the Muthanna complex on 11 June. The next morning  a project manager observed them looting of some equipment via the camera surveillance system before the ‘terrorists’ disabled it. The document, as cited by the Associated Press, explicitly referred to the capture of bunkers 13 and 41, two locations still holding chemical weapons (CW) so severely damaged during the 1991 war to liberate Kuwait that until today they could not be disposed of in a safe way.

The capture of two CW storage bunkers at Muthanna by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, now shortened to Islamic State) has raised fears of chemical warfare in Iraq as well as Syria. The insurgent grouping’s habitual resort to extreme violence in combat, its strict upholding of Sharia law, and uncompromising attitude towards ‘non-believers’ leave many a commentator convinced that it will stop at nothing in its pursuit of the Islamic state.

Analysis of documents relating to the dismantlement of the Muthanna complex in the 1990s and the subsequent monitoring of the site however demonstrates that it would be all but impossible for ISIL to acquire and use Iraq’s former CW, or for that matter, the toxic residues of warfare agents.

Should the ISIL fighters still find sarin, then the probability of the agent’s degradation below any useful degree of purity is extremely high. An additional 20 years have passed since the UNSCOM Chemical Demolition Group sealed the storage bunkers. Mustard agent is far more stable, but both UNSCOM and UNMOVIC reported significant degradation. 155mm artillery rounds were found to contain hydrogen gas and other breakdown products leading to considerable internal pressure. Moreover, the thick-skinned shells proved particularly difficult to penetrate and drilling risked ignition of the built-up gases.

UNSCOM selected two bunkers at Al Muthanna for their solid structure. After completion of destruction operations, it sealed the structures. They blocked off all entrances with two brick walls and a 5cm layer of tar in between them. A third brick wall was erected at a distance of 1 metre from the second wall and the space in between was filled with reinforced concrete. Together, the overall thickness of the entrance seals amounts to 1.5 metres. The hole at the top of bunker 13 containing the sarin rockets and precursor chemicals from a US bomb in 1991  was closed by filling the whole inner room with soil through that hole and then plugging it with reinforced concrete.

Any penetration of the bunker by ISIL fighters would require major dismantling and rubble removal, all the while not knowing the exact location of the toxic chemicals, propellants and explosives and facing potential exposure to contaminated soil or air. Even the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is still considering how it might proceed to determine the bunker’s exact contents.

More technical details on the state of Iraq’s former CW and tables on the contents of the bunkers are in an article I wrote for the August edition of CBRNe World. Registration may be required, but it is for free.

[Cross-posted from The Trench.]

The banalisation of tear gas

Posted: August 17, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Chemical | Tags: , , , , | 6 Comments

I am not the only person who is concerned by the banalisation of tear gas as a riot control agent. Over the past few years, the intensity with which such agents have been used has increased markedly, to the point that whole sections of cities now routinely become saturated with the toxic chemicals. In particular Michael Crowley of Bradford University’s Non-Lethal Weapons Project has published studies on the fast technological development and growing global markets of riot control agents and their delivery systems: one in collaboration with the Omega Research Foundation, and one, co-authored with Dana Perkins, then expert of the 1540 Committee, for the Biochemical Security 2030 Project, University of Bath. Likewise, the Physicians for Human Rights issued a report in 2012 on the Bahrain government’s indiscriminate use of tear gas, and in 2013 another one on tear gas excesses in Turkey.

The recent massive use of tear gas by a highly militarised local police force to quell riots in Ferguson, Missouri, has drawn renewed attention to a weapon that the Chemical Weapons Convention bans as a tool of warfare.

Anna Feigenbaum has just published a historical overview of tear gas in The Atlantic, starting with the fist use of a chemical weapon by the French in World War 1 exactly 100 years ago this month.

Perhaps most striking is her compilation and mapping of global tear gas use during 2013 (my screenshot):

20140817 A Year in Mass Tear Gassing

A PDF printout of the incidents she has listed runs for 19 pages.

Alas, if a riot control agent is used as a tool for law enforcement or domestic riot control purposes, then the Chemical Weapons Convention does not consider it as a chemical weapon and therefore falls outside its scope of application.

[Cross-posted from The Trench]

 

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