While the Chemical Weapons Convention bans the use of toxic chemicals in warfare because they do not discriminate between combatants and non-combatants, but carves out an exception for their use for "domestic riot control purposes" despite their indiscriminate use against non-violent protestors and those engaged in acts of violence alike.
With its original mission nearing completion, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons should increase its support for the discovery and destruction of old chemical weapons.
Russia, China Skip Syrian Chemical Weapons Meeting
The COVID-19 pandemic is reshaping thinking about national security and geopolitics Understanding these changes is crucial to how we—as advocates, analysts, educators, and engaged citizens—respond.
Investigators identified Syria's air force as responsible for March 2017 sarin attacks against rebel-held communities in Syria.
An inaugural report released April 8 by the OPCW's new Investigation and Identification Team (IIT) attributes a series of chemical weapons attacks in Syria in March 2017 to the Syrian Air Force. The new OPCW team has a mandate to assign responsibility for chemical attacks identified by the OPCW's Fact-Finding Mission reports that were not investigated by the United Nations-OPCW Joint Investigative Mechanism, which was dissolved in 2017.
New families of chemical agents soon will be explicitly prohibited by the Chemical Weapons Convention.
Russia invokes a rare UN process to question chemical weapons claims in Syria.
U.S. Begins Destroying Last Batch of Sarin
The treaty to prohibit chemical weapons is nearing completion of some of its core goals, but a range of political and compliance challenges threaten the regime.