Preventing chemical weapons as sciences advance and converge

Dando said: “One area of growing concern has been State interest in the aerosolized application of a range of toxic chemical agents potentially including pharmaceutical chemicals, bioregulators, and toxins that attack the central nervous system of those targeted. Ostensibly promoted for use in extreme law enforcement scenarios, such as large scale hostage situations, to incapacitate an individual or a group rapidly and completely without causing permanent disability or fatality, their use in practice poses grave dangers to health and well-being of all those affected. Furthermore, research and development in this area potentially opens up the door to new forms of chemical weapon and warfare.”

Shang said “It is important to emphasize that scientists’ work on the detection, protection and treatment of chemical weapons is important in the overall effort to prevent the misuse of toxic chemicals, but scientists also need to be more aware of the possible misuse of their benignly-intended work.”

In their article the authors conclude that chemical and life scientists, health professionals and wider informed activist civil society need to play their part in protecting the prohibition of poison and chemical weapons. They must work with States to build effective and responsive measures to ensure that the rapid scientific and technological advances are safeguarded from hostile use and are instead employed for the benefit of all.

In June 2018, the Royal Society of Chemistry published a book by the three authors of the Science article. The book — Preventing Chemical Weapons: Arms Control and Disarmament as the Sciences Converge — highlights the increasingly diverse threats of the hostile use of toxic chemicals, by an ever broader range of State and non-State actors, some employing existing capabilities, others potentially being facilitated by rapid advances in the life and chemical sciences. Consequently the authors urge the international community to use the opportunity of the 4th Review Conference in November to strengthen implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) to meet these challenges.

Publication of the book came in the wake of a Special Session of the Conference of States Parties to the CWC which met in late June to attempt to address the unprecedented challenges to the integrity of the Convention posed by the use of chemical weapons in Syria, Iraq, Malaysia and the UK.

makes the case that the chemical and life sciences, and associated disciplines, such as neuroscience and nanotechnology, are in the midst of a period of rapid and revolutionary development and convergence. And while this will bring societal benefits, it will also have potentially malign applications.

The book analyses these transformational advances and the significant challenges the international governmental and scientific communities face to ensure they are safeguarded from hostile use, and are not harnessed in the development of chemical weapons.

The authors examine the current capabilities, limitations and failings of the existing international arms control and disarmament architecture – notably the CWC and its implementing body, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) – in preventing the development and use of chemical weapons. And they see a major opportunity for concerted global action in November this year when all 193 OPCW Member States gather at the CWC Review Conference in The Hague. However achieving progress here will be highly challenging given the open and deep disagreements between Member States on fundamental issues most notably how to respond to the continuing chemical weapons attacks in Syria.

Recognising the current discord within the OPCW, and employing an innovative Holistic Arms Control approach, the book urges the global governmental and non-governmental communities to explore the full range of international law, international agreements and regulatory mechanisms potentially applicable to weapons employing toxic chemical agents, in order to develop recommendations for more effective routes to combat their proliferation and misuse.

— Read more in Michael Crowly et al., “Preventing chemical weapons as sciences converge,” Science 362, no. 6416 (16 November 2018) (DOI: 10.1126/science.aav5129); and Michael Crowly et al., Preventing Chemical Weapons: Arms Control and Disarmament as the Sciences Converge (Royal Society of Chemistry; 1 edition, 26 June 2018)