Chemical Weapons Convention

• US Department of Defense announced recently that the last of the country’s “obsolete” stockpile of chemical weapons was safely destroyed, meeting commitments that were ratified in 1997’s Chemical Weapons Convention.
• US and the Soviet Union agreed in principle in 1989 to destroy their chemical weapons stockpiles and later the US ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) in 1997.

ABOUT CWC

• It is the world’s first multilateral disarmament agreement to provide for the elimination of an entire category of weapons of mass destruction within a fixed time frame.
• It has 192 state parties and 165 signatories including India.
• It is administered by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

ABOUT ORGANISATION FOR THE PROHIBITION OF CHEMICAL WEAPONS

• It is an international organization established by the CWC in 1997 to implement and enforce the terms of the CWC.
• HQs- Hague, Netherlands.
• It is authorized to perform inspections to verify that signatory states are complying with the convention.
• It also performs testing of sites and victims of suspected chemical weapons attacks.
• The OPCW was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013.