Until recently, few people had heard of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague. Two recent events brought this highly credited disarmament organisation under the international spotlight.
On 27 September 2013, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2118 (2013) binding Syria to eliminate all chemical weapons material and equipment by the first half of 2014. The resolution followed intensive diplomacy between the United States and Russia in the wake of the chemical weapons attack on Ghouta, near Damascus, on 21 August, and the subsequent threat of imminent military strikes by the United States and several of its allies against the regime of Bashar al-Assad. The deadline of mid – 2014 was established following the decision of the OPCW executive council to initiate from 1 October 2013 an accelerated programme for achieving the complete elimination of Syria’s stockpile of chemical weapons within nine months.
Then, on 11 October 2013, the Norwegian Nobel Prize Committee announced that it had decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2013 to the OPCW for its extensive efforts to eliminate chemical weapons worldwide through inspections, destruction and other means.
The use of chemical weapons, abhorrent as it is, has a long history. Thucydides mentions the use of arsenic smoke by the Spartans against the defenders of the Athenian city of Delium during the Peloponnesian wars in the fifth century BC. Indeed, the many instances of the use of chemical agents recorded in Greek and Roman historical texts indicate that chemical warfare was widespread in ancient times. Ancient China and India are known to have studied chemicals for military use.
The deployment of chemical weapons has always raised ethical problems. Roman jurists are recorded to have declared, “War is fought with weapons, not with poisons”. A first attempt to restrict their use by means of an international treaty dates back to the 1675 Strasbourg Agreement which prohibited the use of poisoned bullets. As advances in war technology made the use of chemical weapons even more horrific, a second attempt led to the 1874 Brussels Convention on the Law and Customs of War. This convention never entered into force, but was followed by the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, which bound the signatory states to abstain from using projectiles “the object of which is the diffusion of asphyxiating or deleterious gases.” They were supplemented by the Geneva Protocol of 1925, which amounted to a general prohibition of chemical and biological weapons.
A comprehensive and global convention aiming to eliminate all forms of chemical weapons was signed in 1993. The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) prohibits the development, production, acquisition, stockpiling, retention, transfer and use of chemical weapons by the states parties. It entered into force on 29 April 1997, and has been adopted by all nations, except for Angola, Egypt, North Korea and South Sudan, which have yet to signed, and Israel and Myanmar, which have signed but not ratified the Convention. A unique feature of the CWC is the incorporation of the “challenge inspection” clause, which allows any state party harbouring suspicions about another state's non-compliance, to request the OPCW to carry out the necessary inspections
Until its forced accession to the CWC on 14 October 2013, Syria had maintained a chemical weapons programme since the early 1970's, and according to French intelligence, had a stockpile of several hundred tons of sarin. The OPCW has the political support of the entire international community plus the experience and technical know how to complete the destruction of this stockpile. The crucial issue is how this fits in the calculations for a political solution to the civil war in Syria.
On 31 October 2013, the OPCW declared success in meeting its first target, that of destroying equipment for producing, mixing and filling chemical weapons, ahead of the scheduled deadline of 1 November. The OPCW has indeed moved swiftly to prevent the production of new chemical weapons by Syria. The next deadline is that of mid-November, by which time the OPCW and the Syrian government must agree on a detailed plan to destroy Syria's chemical weapons stockpile. The international community, especially the intelligence services of the United States and the anti-Assad coalition, will focus on whether any suspected site or stockpile will be left undeclared by the Syrian Government.
If by mid-2014 the OPCW will announce that it has successfully completed its mission, and that the Syrian government has met all its obligations in the most complete, diligent and transparent manner, providing free and unfettered access to all sites, will it be enough to re-establish Bashar al-Assad’s regime in the eyes of the international community and open the way for the conclusion of a power-sharing deal without insisting on his removal?
The chances that the OPCW’s mission will succeed are quite realistic, not only because of the commitment and diligence of the organization, but also because giving up his chemical weapons seems to be the only card that Bashar al-Assad has left to play to ensure his survival. He cannot afford to cheat or cause any slippage to the established deadlines
A clean certificate by the OPCW will divide the international coalition that has so far been supporting the rebellion. Cracks are already beginning to appear. Regional stakeholders like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, who are seeking the unconditional removal of Bashar al-Assad, feel that the US has been outwitted by Russia with the result that the US – Russia agreement not only brought a retreat from the threat of immediate military strikes but also gave the regime a much needed breathing space and caused bitter disappointment and disarray among the rebel leadership.
However, one must not forget that Bashar al-Assad, though tactically he may have decided to cooperate fully with the OPCW, remains nonetheless ruthless in his attempts to stem the rebellion. Similarly, the opposition has no intention of scaling down its armed rebellion and shows no appetite for a power-sharing political solution. Thus, while the OPCW carries on with its work of depriving the Syrian government of its chemical weapons, the fighting goes on causing untold hardships to the civilian population and forcing millions to flee their homes and country.
In the current situation featuring a military stalemate on the ground, an intransigent regime fighting for survival, an opposition divided along ideological, ethnic and religious lines, the infiltration of radical and terrorist groups into the rebel coalition, and the growing danger that the whole region will slide into chaos, the international community is once more pressing for a peace conference in Geneva.
The difficulties being encountered by the UN - Arab League special representative, Mr Lakhdar Brahimi, to broker a deal which could pave the way for the peace conference, alas, indicate not only that the warring factions in Syria are irreconcilable, but also that the international stakeholders in the conflict hold similarly opposed positions.
So far the international community has agreed on one thing with regard to the Syrian conflict: the urgent need to eliminate all chemical weapons from Syrian territory, as expressed in Security Council resolution 2118 (2013). One would like to hope that a successful resolution of this issue come mid-2014, will provide a window of opportunity for enough trust and confidence to be built among the warring factions and their respective sponsors to persuade them to engage sincerely into a peace process leading to an all-inclusive political system and the transformation of Syria into a free and democratic state.
Tarcisio Zammit is a former Ambassador of Malta to Belgium and Malta's representative to the EU Political and Security Committee