Pure and Applied Chemistry

Abstract: The verification regime of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) has now been in operation for more than five years. Its two principal components are the declarations to be made by States Parties and the on-site inspections carried out by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) inspectors to verify these declarations. Its implementation has proved to be a resounding success - more than 1200 on-site inspections have been carried out in ver 50 of the Convention ’s 145 States Parties and many practical lessons have been learned. To ensure the continued success of the verification regime, some problems -particularly in relation to industry declarations, the updating of the approved list of inspection equipment, on-site sampling and analysis, and off-site analysis- need to be resolved.