Recent events from the Middle East to Northeast Asia have once again highlighted the unsatisfactory state of affairs with respect to the tool kit available to the international community for responding to the challenge of weapons of mass destruction. This makes it all the more curious as to why more attention is not paid to the one area where success is more clearly demonstrable.
Chemical, biological and nuclear weapons can inflict mass casualties in a single attack. The first two have been outlawed. The Chemical Weapons Convention, in force since 1997, is the jewel in the crown of global treaties regulating weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
Unlike the more familiar Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), the CWC is universal and does not create a world of chemical apartheid in which a small group of countries is in legitimate possession of weapons that are banned for all others. Unlike the Biological Weapons Convention (BMC), the CWC contains rigorous provisions on monitoring and verification that routinely reach into the private sector to a depth and breadth neither contemplated before nor emulated since. Universality, equality, nondiscrimination and the promise of effectiveness have helped secure near-total adherence to the CWC, embracing 95 and 98 percent of the world's population and chemical industry respectively.