INTERNATIONAL INSPECTIONS: THE EXAMPLE OF THE CHEMICAL WEAPONS CONVENTION

B. ter Haar

On sabbatical leave from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,

P.O. Box 20061, 2500 EB Den Haag (Netherlands)

Summary

Effective functioning of an international agreement requires compliance by the parties. A verification regime might help to build confidence in compliance and deter parties from violating. Arms control agreements such as the envisaged Chemical Weapons Convention comprise elaborated verification regimes that might contain useful precedents for future environmental agreements.

1. Introduction

Low flying international inspection airplanes might monitor air pollution and verify whether agreed measures have been taken. International inspection teams might inspect plants to verify that emissions of certain compounds might have stopped or are below agreed limits. Satellites might be used to verify an agreement to limit forest burning¹. These are a few examples of the possibility to use the experience of international arms control for strengthening international environmental agreements. The objective of this paper is to present an overview of relevant aspects of the projected Chemical Weapons Convention. In the first paragraphs (2 and 3) some of the general projects involved in ensuring compliance with international agreements are discussed. In the next two paragraphs (4 and 5) an overview is given of the projected Chemical Weapon Convention, with emphasis on the envisaged regime for international monitoring of the chemical industry. Finally, those elements that might be most relevant for verifying environmental agreements are discussed in somewhat more detail.

2. Can international agreements be enforced?

Enforcement could be considered to consist of two elements:

- monitoring compliance

- effective sanctions against violations

Enforcement of international agreements implies enforcement at both the national and the international level. As set out below, monitoring compliance by states involves many problems, but it is feasible. But it is very doubtful whether a system of effective sanctions against violators will be feasible in the near future.

2.1 Enforcement at the national level

National enforcement of international agreements is not basically different from enforcement of national regulations. A government that is Party to an international agreement has to take all necessary measures to ensure compliance by everybody within its jurisdiction and control². The history of national enforcement of regulations for the protection of the environment and for labour safety is much older than arms control agreements. The Geneva Conference on Disarmament has made extensive use of this experience to develop a regime for international inspections³.

2.2 Enforcement at the international level

Enforcement at the international level, that is between States Party to the agreement, poses problems of a totally different order than national enforcement does. In the international world the willingness and possibility to “force” another state into compliance usually does not exist. It can therefore be argued that use of the term “enforcement” is often⁴ less appropriate in an international context, could easily give rise to false expectations and should possibly be reserved for the relation between a central government (or a supra-national authority) and its subjects.

2.3 Why do states observe international agreements?

The lack of a central power to enforce observance of international agreements does not imply that between States only complete anarchy is feasible. When states enter into agreements it can be assumed that they have decided that it is in their interest to observe the agreement. This decision is however often based on the condition that other Parties to the agreement will also comply. It is here that arms control agreements and international environmental agreements might have a few things in common:

- observance of the agreement has disadvantages (loss of military options, higher production costs, etc.)

- if no regime exists for verifying the agreement, states might be tempted to violate the agreement (e.g. by instigating or tolerating violations within their jurisdiction)

2.4 The necessity of monitoring compliance

Observing an international agreement might put a country at a comparative disadvantage against countries that violate it⁵. The effective functioning of such international agreements therefore requires that the States Parties feel confident that other Parties are honouring their obligations. To build such confidence the following types of measures could be considered:

- international exchange of relevant information

- opening facilities for international routine inspections

- a regime to solve doubts about compliance

These three types of measures have been developed to strengthen confidence in the effectiveness of the Chemical Weapons Convention, but they could probably also serve to build confidence in observance of environmental agreements.

To avoid any misunderstanding it should be pointed out that although the object of inspection often is a private company, verification is in principle a matter between the international inspection team and the government on whose territory the inspection takes place. The purpose is essentially not to verify whether the company in question is in violation (national government), but to verify whether the State is violating the international agreement by not enforcing it nationally.

3. What to do against violators?

As mentioned above, enforcement does not only require the ability to determine the facts, but also the ability to take effective punitive measures against whoever is guilty of violating the enforced agreement. Taking punitive measures against a state that has been found violating an international agreement is however even more difficult than ascertaining that a violation has taken place.

3.1 Sanctions against states violating international agreements

The present experience with international sanctions is disappointing and the near term future of an effective international sanction regime is not very promising. The history of the use of chemical weapons by Iraq in its war with Iran is a good example of the difficulties involved. Even when a United Nations team of experts had found irrefutable evidence of repeated violations by Iraq of the Geneva Protocol of 1925 (that prohibits the use in war of chemical and biological weapons), the world community was not able or willing to take any measures other than an official condemnation of the use of chemical weapons. For many states equilibrium in their relations with Iran and Iraq weighed heavier than upholding the Geneva Protocol. Most nations seem to agree that this is a bad precedent for other arms control agreements. Efforts are therefore undertaken to devise a regime for sanctions against violators of the prospective Chemical Weapons Convention. These efforts have however so far not led to a credible system of sanctions.

Major violations of international environmental agreements will probably be of a totally different character than the use of chemical weapons, but in one respect the situation might be comparable: many states might be unwilling to react because of political considerations that are not related to the violation.

3.2 Deterrence by early detection and threat of publication

Efforts to develop a satisfactory sanction regime should of course continue, but observance of international agreements should not be made solely dependent on sanctions. Confidence in the Chemical Weapons Convention will have to be built on the combination of routine inspections and the possibility of challenge inspections. The verification regime is designed to deter a Party from violating the Convention by maximizing the risk that a violation will be detected in an early state, that is to say, not only before chemical weapons have actually been used, but even before a substantial stock of chemical weapons can be employed among the armed forces.

The experience gained during 20 years of implementing the nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty of 1968 seems to indicate that countries are not willing to take the risk of detection. Countries that were not willing to forego the option of nuclear weapons simply did not become party to the Treaty. Disquieting irregularities have almost never been reported. In the very small number of cases that inspections could not be concluded satisfactorily, the mere risk of publication of the unsatisfactory conclusions induced the countries in question to take measures to the satisfaction of the inspectorate. If silent diplomacy fails, public diplomacy can sometimes be effective, like in the case of the Krasnoyarsk radar built by the Soviet Union in violation of the Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty⁶.

4. The basic structure of the Chemical Weapons Convention

The projected Chemical Weapons Convention can be considered to consist of the following 5 main parts:

1. a comprehensive ban on chemical weapons

2. an obligation to destroy CW-stocks and production plants

3. a regime to give Parties confidence in compliance

4. a regime to resolve doubts about compliance

5. an international organization to implement the Convention

The central provision of the CW-Convention is a prohibition of developing, producing, retaining, transferring and using chemical weapons.

The logical consequence of this ban is the obligation to destroy chemical weapon stocks and chemical weapon production plants. To assure all parties that such destruction indeed takes place, all plants and stockpiles will have to be declared shortly after the convention enters into force and be sealed and put under a system of international on site inspection until they are destroyed.

The heart of the problem of verifying a ban on chemical weapons is that many civil chemical plants have, to a lesser or greater degree, a capability to produce chemical weapons. The obligation to destroy plants that have been making certain chemicals for chemical weapon purposes makes sense only if Parties can feel confident that civil plants that have comparable capabilities are not used for the same purpose. To give Parties such confidence an elaborate verification regime is foreseen. This regime might in some respects be a model for international environmental agreements. It will be discussed in somewhat more detail in paragraph 5.

If a party wants to violate the Convention, it will probably try to keep the plants where it would produce its chemical weapons outside the scope of the routine inspection regime. To deter such behavior, all parties will have the right to request inspection of any location or facility on the territory of another State Party. This system of challenge inspections will work only if inspections can take place anytime, everywhere, at very short notice and can never be refused.

The inspections will have to be carried out by the inspectors of the Technical Secretariat. This Technical Secretariat will be part of an international organization for the implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention. The highest organ in this organization will be the Conference of (all) States Parties, but an Executive Council (with limited membership) will supervise the implementation of the convention on a more frequent basis.

5. Verification of non-production

5.1 Feasibility and cost effectiveness are required

In theory it might seem possible to collect data on all chemicals that can be used for chemical weapon purposes and to inspect all relevant chemical plants regularly. This would require an enormous inspectorate with thousands of inspectors. Even if this were feasible, it would certainly not be cost effective. The efforts of a relatively international inspectorate will have to be concentrated at the chemical plants that are considered to present the largest risk.

5.2 The Annex on Chemicals and the three Schedules

The backbone of the regime is a classification of the most relevant chemical compounds into three lists (or Schedules) that will be subjected to three different regimes. All three lists contain both chemicals that can be used as warfare agents and precursors of such agents. List (Schedule) 1 contains the most dangerous compounds that have no legitimate applications except in very small (gram) quantities. List 2 contains chemicals that present a somewhat smaller risk and are (often) produced in small commercial quantities. List 3 contains chemicals that are considered to present an even smaller but still substantial risk and are produced in large quantities (quantities of 100,000 tons and more).

Production, storage and use of the chemicals on Schedule 1 is permitted only for a limited number of purposes (such as research and protection against chemical weapons) and even then only in very small quantities under strict rules of declaration and verification. On list 1 are the nerve agents, the mustard gases and a few key precursors for binary⁷ nerve agents.

Production and use of the chemicals on Schedule 2 for other purposes than chemical weapons is not subjected to limitations, but if the quantity is above a certain threshold, declaration is compulsory and will be verified through on-site inspections. On Schedule 2 are mainly key precursors of the warfare agents on Schedule 1. Commercial use of Schedule 2 chemicals is relatively small.

Civil production of Schedule 3 chemicals is so large that it was not considered useful to try to verify declarations of such production. The regime for these chemicals is therefore limited to an obligation to report to the Technical Secretariat the quantities and purpose of production and use. Among the chemicals on Schedule 3 are toxic chemicals that have been used as warfare agents such as hydrogen cyanide and phosgene, and widely used precursors such as phosphorus oxychloride and sulphur dichloride.

5.3 Ad hoc checks and ad hoc inspections

The system described above encompasses only production plants that produce, process or use chemicals on one of the three lists. However, many other plants have similar capabilities. But due to the large variety in chemical plants and the big diversity of chemical warfare agents, no clear and objective criteria can be devised to distinguish plants that are "capable" of producing chemical weapons from plants that are not.

The Federal Republic of Germany therefore proposed in 1988 to bring the whole chemical industry under a regime of routine ad hoc checks as a supplement to the more intrusive routine inspections. The only purpose of these checks would be to verify on a routine basis whether, at the time of the check, any chemicals on one of the lists were produced without being reported⁸. The basis of these checks would be a register of all chemical plants. The proposal did, however, not satisfactorily answer the question how the enormous number of chemical plants in the world could be inspected often enough to make the system a credible deterrence against violations.

As a possible answer, Czechoslovakia proposed to give the international Technical Secretariat the discretion to choose the objects of, what was now called ad hoc inspections. This would open the possibility to direct the ad hoc inspections at plants that are considered most relevant. Such ad hoc inspections would not have to be limited to registered chemical plants, but could take place wherever the Technical Secretariat would think it useful. Several delegations believe, however, that this would give too much power to the Technical Secretariat. The United Kingdom, therefore, proposed to limit the right to request ad hoc inspections to the States Parties. The number of inspections a party would be allowed to request in a year would be limited by quota, just as the number of ad hoc inspections a Party would have to allow. It is not yet clear what the synthesis of these ideas will look like, but it might very well include the right of Parties to request an ad hoc inspection limited to registered chemical production facilities.

5.4 Challenge inspections

The system of ad hoc checks or inspections will in principle cover every chemical plant, provided Parties register all their chemical plants. However, a country that wants to acquire a clandestine stockpile of chemical weapons, will probably not register that plant. The regime of challenge inspections is designed for such situations. It therefore deserves mentioning here, although it usually is not grouped under verification of non-production, because its scope is wider than that. International environmental agreements can possibly do with a somewhat less radical regime⁹.

6. Analogies between disarmament and environmental protection

The differences between chemical disarmament¹⁰ and the protection of the environment are numerous and obvious. For the purpose of this paper it will do to mention only the following points:

- Chemical disarmament aims at prevention intentional damage caused by toxic chemicals, whereas the purpose of environmental protection (among other things) is the prevention of unintended damage.

- Violating a ban on chemical weapons is difficult, time consuming and very expensive. Violating an environmental agreement is usually easier, quicker and chapter (at least for the short-term) than complying.

- A clandestine chemical weapon plant will probably be characterized by unusually few traces outside the plant (to hamper detection). A chemical plant that is violating environmental regulations will probably be characterized by unusual large traces outside the plant.

However, the similarities are of more interest to us. As set out above, a similarity between arms control agreements and most if not all international environmental agreements is that their effective functioning is dependent on the Parties having confidence that other Parties will also observe the agreement. A mere declaration of observance will not always be enough to build such confidence¹¹, certainly not when undetected violation would seem to be in the (short term) interest of the violator. It is here that verification of arms control agreements might form a useful example for international environmental agreements. It goes without saying that arms control does not have a set of prescriptions ready that only have to be followed to have an effective regime for monitoring compliance with environmental agreements, but certain elements can probably be useful.

7. Preconditions for effective verification

The two cornerstones of effective verification are openness and adequate protection of confidential information. These preconditions are closely connected because it is very difficult to demand the necessary openness if confidentiality is not guaranteed. On the other hand, if adequate measures are taken to protect confidential information, no good reason exists to deny the international inspectors access to sensitive information, if they require such information.

7.1 Openness

There is hardly a better way to call suspicions on oneself than by secretiveness. It is therefore crucial that States Parties make sure that all the information an international inspection team needs is made available.

7.2 Protection of confidential information

Representatives of the chemical industry have repeatedly stated that the chemical industry would worry less about on site inspections, if they felt assured that their commercial and technical secrets will not be compromised. To give such assurance a special Annex on the Protection of Confidential Information was added to the draft text of the Convention. The 6-page annex consists of four parts:

- General principles for the handling of confidential information, such as criteria for classification and publication;

- Employment and conduct of personnel in the technical secretariat, such as limiting access to confidential information;

- Measures to protect sensitive installations and prevent disclosure of confidential data during on-site verification activities. The inspected State Party may also propose such measures, but the inspection team has to adopt such proposals only when it considers them appropriate;

- Procedures in case of breaches or alleged breaches of confidentiality. In serious cases the diplomatic immunity of inspectors may be waived by the Director-General of the Technical Secretariat.

Protection of confidential information is also ensured by the following provisions:

- A state will be inspected only by inspectors that had previously been accepted, silently or explicitly, by that state.

- All inspections will be conducted according to the rules of an elaborate inspection protocol.

- Routine inspections (with the possible exception of the less intrusive ad hoc inspections) will be based on a facility attachment that will be negotiated between the Technical Secretariat and the inspected Party on the basis of a model agreement that is appended to the Convention.

7.3 The need of flexibility

The more detailed an agreement is, the more certain it is that the Parties to the agreement will want to change it as son as it comes into force. However, amending an international agreement is such a cumbersome process that usually nobody dares to propose it. Any agreement with verification provisions will by necessity include many small details, such as precise definitions of the items that are to be verified, and descriptions of verification procedures. As scientific and technological developments proceed, some of these details will need revision. This will probably be as true for environmental agreements as for the projected Chemical Weapons Convention.

The solution proposed for the Convention on Chemical Weapons is to set different revision rules for different parts of the Convention and its annexes. What the amendment and revision procedures eventually will look like is not yet precisely known, but probably (at least) the four following types of procedures will be instituted¹²:

-1- By unanimous decision of the Conference of States Parties. Some provisions are considered to be so crucial for the Convention¹³ that amendment should be made virtually impossible.

-2- By a highly qualified majority (3/4 to 9/10) of the Conference of States Parties entering into force only for State Parties that ratify the amendment. This is the usual way of amending treaties.

-3- By a qualified majority of the Conference of States Parties, entering into force for all States Parties.

-4- By silent acceptance of a proposal. Such a proposal could be made by every State Party and by the Executive Council. This procedure would apply for additions to and deletions from the lists of items that are subjected to verification. In case one or more Parties object, the procedure mentioned under 3 would apply.

7.4 Trial inspections

A complicated verification regime will not work effectively simply because the Parties to the agreement have reached political agreement. The effort needed to reach general agreement on a regime that on paper looks logical and effective seems to be so big that, at least in the field of arms control, negotiators and governments sometimes easily overlook the fact that political will is not always sufficient for making an agreement work. To test out the verification procedures of the Chemical Weapons Convention, trial inspections are being conducted. The first of these was organized in 1986 in the Netherlands with the cooperation of the Netherlands Ministry of Housing, Physical Planning and Environment.

8. An international organization

8.1 An institute for information exchange

An efficient exchange of information is not feasible without some sort of international institute that collects, processes and distributes the information. If nothing more than information exchange is required for the effective implementation of an agreement, this task could be assigned to an existing international organization. For example, the exchange of information in the framework of the Biological Weapons Convention has been assigned to the Department for Disarmament Affairs of the United Nations. It would however not seem wise to follow the example of forgetting to arrange for the financing of this task¹⁴.

8.2 An international inspectorate

An exchange of information will not always suffice to give confidence, and sometimes international inspections will be required. If an agreement is basically bilateral in character these inspections can be conducted by representatives of the other Party, such as in the case of the INF agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union. Under certain circumstances the inspections in the framework of a multilateral agreement might also be conducted by national inspectors of the Parties. The verification of an agreement on conventional arms reductions in Europe might be an example. However, in many cases, international inspectors will be required. These inspectors will have to be hired and trained. They will need headquarters with legal, technical and other staff departments to back them up. To do their work properly, they will require some kind of diplomatic immunity during their work. If problems rise between the inspectorate and inspected Parties, a mechanism should exist to solve them. It is clear that all this requires the set up of an international organization for the verification of the agreement.

8.3 One or more organizations?

If international verification is considered to be a useful manner for strengthening certain international environmental agreements, it is to be expected that more than one agreement will require such inspections. It might seem self-evident that all these inspections should be conducted by the same international organization, but it is not, because the membership of different agreements will probably not be identical. As an example might serve the International Inspectorate that will be set up as part of the Technical Secretariat to implement the Chemical Weapons Convention. It has been suggested that this same Inspectorate should also verify compliance with the Biological Weapons Convention. However this could result in a situation in which Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention could decide on the implementation of the Biological Weapon Convention without being Party to it, while countries Party only to the Biological Weapons Convention could not. The solution might be to establish the verification organization separately from the Chemical Weapons Convention. The precedent for such a set-up is the role of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in conducting inspections in the framework of the (nuclear) Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The IAEA has its own Statute and in fact even predates the Non Proliferation Treaty.

8.4 The cost of verification

Although the costs of verification are low in comparison with those of major weapon systems or with the costs of non-compliance with environmental agreements, they should not be underestimated. The costs of the verification division of the IAEA (the so called safeguards department) are about $60 million per year, including all overhead costs concealed in other parts of the budget of the IAEA. In view of the large task of the safeguards department this is cheap, possibly too cheap¹⁵. A verification regime for the chemical industry that vies the same degree of certainty as the system of safeguards on nuclear materials is, however, not feasible and would be far too expensive. An adequate verification regime seems possible for something between $100 million and $200 million a year¹⁶.

9. Verification technology

An overview of all the verification technologies that have been developed or are in development for arms control purposes and could possibly be used for verification of environmental agreements would require a separate paper. Here the main types and principles will be only mentioned.

9.1 National technical means and cooperative verification

Until recently verification of the arms control agreements between the two superpowers was mainly based on the use of national technical means of verification, such as observation-satellites. However, on site and near-site inspections and sampling require the active cooperation of the inspected country. This cooperative type of verification is probably more relevant for verification of environmental agreements than the use of national technical means.

9.2 Negative verification

One of the main requirements of cooperative verification is that it should be as little intrusive as possible. Negative verification is therefore a very attractive concept. This means analyzing only that a restricted item is not present, without figuring out what the analyzed sample actually consists of. Such a technique could be used for example during an ad hoc check to verify that no restricted compounds are produced at the inspected plant.

9.3 On-site, near-site and off-site verification

Another manner to limit the intrusiveness of inspection is by staying away as far as possible from the inspected object. A typical off-site method of verification is by satellite. As the resolution of advanced reconnaissance satellites approaches 10 centimeter, a lot of information can be gathered this way. An example of a near-site verification technique is analysis of effluent water outside a plant. In the case of arms control agreements off-site and near-site verification will often not be sufficient and on-site inspection will be necessary.

9.4 Open skies

Currently negotiations are taking place between the NATO and Warsaw-pact countries about opening their skies for reconnaissance by aircraft. This would greatly facilitate near-site verification. By flying over a plant and taking air samples much can be learned about the activities that take place in the plant. The open skies proposal is meant for arms control purposes, but it might also be very useful for verification of environmental agreements.

9.5 Use of instruments

Instruments can facilitate verification in two ways. In the first place inspectors will need instruments during inspections to analyze samples. As it is important to prevent disagreement about applying different standards for different countries, the instruments used will have to be standardized. They should be light and robust because inspectors will have to carry them around.

Instruments can also be used for automatic continuous monitoring. An example is the SNAL (Sample Now, Analyze Later)¹⁷ that could be used for retrospective verification of non-production of chemical weapons. On-site instruments could in principle also give real time information by using telephone connections or satellites.

9.6 Keep it simple

The literature about possible verification techniques is almost as fascinating as the literature about possible weapon techniques. What is needed for cooperative verification efforts however is instruments and techniques that are accepted and understood in all parts of the world where they have to be used. On-site monitoring instruments will have to be understood by the technicians of the plant, otherwise they will probably not function long. Instruments that inspection teams take with them should be understood by the inspected country, otherwise the country might not be willing to allow the instruments brought into the country for fear of espionage.

10. On negotiating a multilateral verification regime

Environmental protection can possibly learn something from the accomplishments of arms control, but probably also from the mistakes made. The negotiations on a worldwide ban on chemical weapons have been dragging along now for more than 20 years, partly because the participants in the negotiations did not always have the necessary political will, but partly also because the problems involved were grossly underestimated and the negotiations were not undertaken very efficiently.

10.1 A permanent and efficient negotiating forum

Traveling around the world from conference to conference has, at least for some time, many attractions, but it is probably not the least for some time, many attractions, but it is probably not the most effective manner of negotiating. Almost all worldwide disarmament negotiations are therefore concentrated in Geneva in and around the Conference on Disarmament. This made it possible for the United Nations and many states to have arms control experts permanently in Geneva. Now that we seem to have entered an era of permanent negotiations on international environmental agreements it might be advisable to institute a permanent negotiating forum¹⁸.

Such a Conference on the Protection of the Environment should avoid two flaws in the set up of the Conference on Disarmament:

- In May and from August to February the Conference on Disarmament does not convene, because most delegations and the permanent UN staff have to attend meetings of the United Nations Disarmament Committee and the United Nations General Assembly, both in New York. These periods could more effectively be used by preparing for the next round of negotiations. Furthermore, the recess period of 5 months in autumn and winter is too long to be efficient¹⁹.

- Every year the Conference on Disarmament has two sessions of 12 weeks each, with a 5-week break in between. This is an inefficient use of time, because most delegations need a break after 4 to 6 weeks, to evaluate their positions and to seek new instructions.

10.2 Direct involvement of all concerned parties

On the face of it involvement of everybody that is interested in the outcome of the negotiations would seem only to complicate the process. The history of the negotiations on a Chemical Weapons Ban seems on the contrary to prove that involvement of all interested parties might be essential for the success of the negotiations. In the first place, it proved impossible to develop an effective inspection regime without the close cooperation of representatives of the objects of inspection. Nobody is better aware of the complications of inspecting a certain location or facility, and of the ways to deceive an inspection team, than the people working at such a facility or location. In the second place, effective implementation of a verification regime is greatly facilitated if it is accepted by the people that will be inspected. Building such a consensus, or at least acceptance, among all parties concerned requires involvement of them all at the earliest possible time.

To prevent any unnecessary differences and misunderstandings the lines of communication between the negotiators and those directly affected by inspections should be as short as possible. The result of the long time absence of such direct links in the CW-negotiations was that certain preoccupations of the chemical industry were sometimes blown up to dimensions that did not have any direct relation with reality, not because of some conspiracy to hamper the negotiations, but just by sheer lack of knowledge²⁰.

10.3 Practical preparation for implementation

Negotiations on international environmental agreements should avoid the mistake to think that the only objective of negotiations is to reach political agreement. The negotiations on a CW-ban have long struggled and are still struggling with this delusion. As set out above, a complicated agreement, like one involving international inspections, will not work simply because the political will exists that it should. A lot of practical work, like developing and testing instruments and procedures, needs to be done before an agreement will function well.

REFERENCES

1. See for example the satellite photograph on page 778 of the National Geographic magazine of December 1988 (Vol.174, No.6).

2. It should be noted, however, that the question of what exactly a State is required to do to implement an international agreement can be more difficult than it might seem. Especially the question of jurisdiction and control poses problems. Should, for example, a State be held responsible for the activities outside the territory of that state of a company that has its headquarters in that State?

3. See for example the working papers of the ad hoc Committee on Chemical Weapons of the Conference on Disarmament CD/CW/WP141, 142 and 143.

4. The exception to this rule is that the European Community that has supranational features.

5. This does not automatically mean that a country in such a situation would be better off if it also stopped complying with the agreement. It might very well be that this would only make the situation for that country even worse (e.g. because it would induce more countries to stop complying and would lead to a complete breakdown of the agreement).

6. At first the USSR denied that the radar installation (that was still being built) would be in violation of the ABM Treaty, subsequently it offered to stop the building process, and finally it agreed to tear the installation down.

7. Binary chemical weapons contain two components that, when mixed, react and form a chemical warfare agent. Until the moment of delivery the two relatively non-toxic components are kept separate which facilitates transports, storage and handling.

8. The latest version of the proposal of ad hoc checks was published as document of the Conference of Disarmament on 6 September 1988 (CD/869).

9. The military security of a state might be in jeopardy if another state produces or hides chemical weapons in a single building. Thus adequate verification requires that an inspection team has the power to enter any building that it considers relevant. In the case of environmental agreements it might be easier to accept certain limitation of the mandate of an inspection team, as possible clandestine activities within one single building that can not be verified from the outside of the building will probably be much less relevant.

10. The terms arms control and disarmament are used interchangeably in this paper.

11. The necessity of verification and confidence building is especially clear in the case of arms control agreements, as these agreements are usually made between countries that consider each other as potential adversaries. It would, however, seem naïve to take compliance with environmental agreements for granted.

12. For details see the rolling text of the draft Convention CD/961 p.49-51 and 197.

13. An example is the obligation to destroy all stocks within 10 years after the entry into force of the Convention.

14. The Second Review Conference of the Biological Weapons Convention agreed on the exchange of information on certain types of biological laboratories and unusual outbreaks of diseases to build confidence in compliance with the Convention. The information was to be forwarded to the Department of Disarmament Affairs of the United Nations in one of the official languages of the United Nations (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish). However, no arrangements were made for translating or otherwise processing the information.

15. As a result of the policy of many nations to limit the budget growth of the United Nations and affiliated organizations to zero, the budget growth of the safeguards department within the IAEA has grown very little in the recent past, whereas the number of plants under safeguards and the amount of safeguarded material grew quickly.

16. A balance will have to be struck between the requirements of adequate verification and the need to keep the costs manageable. In view of the fact that the chemical industry is distributed much more widely over the world than the nuclear industry, and that the nuclear weapon states will be inspected in the same manner as other states (under the NPT the nuclear weapon states are not really inspected) it would seem reasonable and acceptable to project the costs for verification of non-production at twice the costs of more than a vague estimate is not possible as long as neither the outcome of the negotiations, nor the number of facilities to be inspected is known.

17. This system consists of a tape recorder on which at certain intervals a very small sample is stored. A commercially available tape could contain 24000 samples and keep them during several months. From time to time an inspection team could pass by and verify whether any restricted compound had been present in the sampled product or effluent flow. This system is described in CD/CW/WP.204.

18. It could be considered to collocate this forum with the UNEP in Nairobi as many nations do already maintain environmental protection experts in Nairobi.

19. The ad hoc Committee on chemical weapons of the Conference on Disarmament does, however, reconvene in one way or another during three weeks at the end of November and during three weeks in January.

20. One delegation for example maintained that a chemical that was produced in many parts of the world in quantities of millions of tons and a chemical that was in experimental civil production of a few hundreds of kilograms a year should, for the purpose of inspection, both considered to be of large commercial interest.