Syrian chemical weapons: The danger within

Undergraduate Thesis (2015) Copyright Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY), 2015

Overlapping crisis in Syria shed a large number of casualties caused by civil war and terrorism. Since 2013, over 1 million Syrians landed in Lebanon, Jordan and several European countries as refugees as the consequence of mass violence and unstable political constellation. Statistically it took 25 % of Syrians away from their homeland in the past 3 years. Furthermore, the brutality came into force escalating the crisis through the use chlorine gas as a warfare instrument committed by the Syrian government and its supporting fractions. In addition, some allegations pointed out the rise of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) emerged as a contemporary threat to the crisis as well as heating up the tension over the alleged use of mustard gas upon the clash. In this point of view, the use of chemical weapon in Syria has been emerged as a common norm in the situation of warfare. This undergraduate paper will examines the role of Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapon (OPCW) as implementing body of Chemical Weapon Convention (CWC) in mitigating the crisis in Syria through Non-Proliferation. Along with its campaign in Syria, the OPCW tied a solid partnership with United Nations as a definitive international body in form of OPCW-Joint Mission in Syria. The advocacy of OPCW derived from collective diplomatic provisions and executed in several technical maintenances. Awarded the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize, the OPWC has been globally recognized as the most successful organization in field of disarmament over centuries. Keywords: Chemical Weapon, Non-Proliferation, OPCW, Syrian Crisis

Center for International Strategic Studies, 2018

Shahab-ud-din The Syrian Civil War is arguably the worst humanitarian crisis since the Second World War, with over a half million killed, wounded, or missing, and half of Syria's 22 million population displaced from their homes. Syria's largest uprising has devolved into a regionalized civil war that has ravaged the country. President Bashar ul Assad's actions would have remained obscured from the world had it not been for the use of chemical weapons during this conflict. The use of chemical warfare agents (CWAs) has given the Western countries an incentive to jump into the conflict and especially the US, which already felt left out. The Syrian Government sought Russia's help in the crisis. The initial use of CWAs was reported in December 2013. Since then, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Fact Finding Missions that were sent by the UN sponsored resolutions have ascertained that the warring sections have blatantly used Chemical Weapons. The recent incident in the Syrian city of Douma has been confirmed by activists and medics in which dozens of people died when government aircraft dropped bombs filled with toxic chemicals on Douma on Saturday. The international Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has sent monitors to Douma to gather evidence. The Western countries have confirmed through their sources that they have "proof" that the Syrian government had attacked Douma with chemical weapons. France, UK and US have agreed "on the need to take action" in Syria to "deter the further use of chemical weapons". On the other side, both Russia and Syria had denied the accusations of a chemical attack. Moscow's UN envoy said that the possibility of a war between Russia and the US cannot be excluded and hence the immediate priority is to avert the danger of war. Since Saturday's attack in Douma, there had been a sustained military buildup in the eastern Mediterranean. A French frigate, British Royal Navy submarines laden with cruise missiles and the USS Donald Cook, an American destroyer equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles, have all moved into striking range. Syria today is the largest battlefield and generator of sectarianism the world has ever seen, with deep implications for the future boundaries of the Middle East and the spread of terrorism. The ongoing diplomatic conflict between Syria and the US allied with western powers will significantly increase the suffering of the Syrian masses, if the situation escalates resulting in US strike and Russian retaliation. It is a decisive moment in contemporary history which would test the peace keeping effectiveness of international organizations like UN. The trigger-happy US approach had not yielded any results in 2014 when the CWAs were used by both sides in the conflict. Without authentic and genuine confirmation by the OPCW, this type of tactics can result into backlash and further aggravating the situation. The UN must realize that quick and decisive action towards chemical disarmament is essential and it needs to further boost its mechanism for forestalling and controlling the spread of chemical threats.

In 2017 the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) celebrates its 20th anniversary. Looking back at these 20 years, one can hardly deny that the organisation has been successful: it has facilitated the almost universal disarmament of chemical weapons, and not always under easy circumstances. Yet, success is not always rewarded. While the OPCW can be regarded as a highly successful organisation, its reward is a discussion on its viability. Can the OPCW reduce its size and financial resources now that its verification of chemical weapons disarmament is almost finished, or could the organisation change its focus towards other challenges regarding chemical weapons? This policy debate has already been ongoing for several years, but so far without any clear-cut decisions. This report examines the track record of the organisation in the light of the questions raised about the OPCW’s future. It aims to offer some insights into the challenges and options for the future, as well as to identify potential steps that policy makers could take to prepare the OPCW for the future.

EU-ISS Brief, 2019

Since the Third Review Conference (8–19 April 2013), the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the body overseeing the implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), has had to confront growing evidence of chemical war-fare in the Syrian civil war. Syria became a party to the CWC in October 2013, but investigators have repeatedly confirmed chemical weapon (CW) use by government forces and some chemical attacks by non-state actors. In March 2018, an assassination attempt with an uncommon nerve agent in the United Kingdom, for which the British government accuses Russia, poses a completely different challenge to the CWC’s future. These issues in combination with deteriorating international security cooperation have fractured consensus among states parties.

Literature Review for the Policy and Operations Evaluations Department of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs , 2017

This section addresses the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria, with a focus on the investigations and reactions from the international community. It first summarizes the events leading to the 2013 Syrian accession to the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and the work of the various international missions under the auspices of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the UN. Investigation findings and the corresponding debates they triggered within the international community are summarized. The second part of this section contextualizes these events, with a focus on how the debate has been conducted and the broader implications for chemical disarmament and arms control.

Springer eBooks, 2017

Chemical weapons are banned under customary international law, the 1925 Geneva Protocol and the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). The CWC today has achieved near universal adherence; a small number of states, however, remain outside its realm. Syria-until 2013 one of them-was long presumed to possess chemical weapons and in 2012 effectively admitted so. The Syrian civil war always carried the risk that one side or another would use these weapons. Reports to this end began to appear in 2012. In March 2013, following separate requests by Syria and several Western States, the UN Secretary-General began to investigate these allegations. Whilst the investigation team was in Damascus, a large-scale sarin attack was launched on Ghouta, killing hundreds of people. This incident and its subsequent confirmation by the UN team set in motion a series of unprecedented events leading to the elimination of Syria's chemical weapons stockpile under strict international control, supported by financial and in-kind assistance by more than 20 countries. But this multilateral effort did not end the use of toxic chemicals in Syria, and OPCW fact-finding missions have since confirmed several cases of chlorine attacks. Also, ISIS/Daesh reportedly has used chemical weapons including chlorine and mustard gas in Syria and Iraq. The paper concludes that it will be important to identify the perpetrators of these attacks and bring them to justice in order to protect the international norm against poison gas.

Jurnal Pertahanan

2013

Many observers, myself included, were worried about whether too much time had elapsed between exposure of alleged victims and the collection of biomedical samples. I was also discouraged by the fact that the UN’s earlier report did not go into any great detail on the technical methods used for analysis of the samples. Much of the technical discussion at the time involved techniques that were used in the aftermath of the 1994 and 1995 Japanese incidents, which have shortcomings. Acetylcholinesterase counting is non-specific and can’t tie the sample to an exact causative agent. Measurement of direct Sarin, IMPA and MPA levels is rather time limited, due to hydrolysis of Sarin and the body’s gradual elimination of IMPA and MPA. With regard to the incidents in Syria, the time elapsed between alleged exposure and the collection of biomedical samples meant that, at best, these older techniques would have been at the outside edge of their usefulness, if not useless entirely.

2019

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