Opcw The Legal Texts

TMC Asser Press co-publication with the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), The Hague.

The Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction (CWC), which entered into force on 29 April 1997, bans an entire category of weapons of mass destruction. The CWC has now been in force for almost twenty years and having 190 States Parties as at July 2014, has almost achieved universal adherence. To achieve its objectives, the CWC established the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). This third edition of 'OPCW: The Legal Texts' brings together the text of the Convention, the interpretative decisions and understandings reached by the organs of the OPCW, policies, rules of procedure, regulations, the conclusions of the three reviews undertaken by the States Parties of the operation of the Convention and key background texts. The volume provides a comprehensive overview of the Convention regime, as it has developed over the past seventeen years. Useful for national authorities responsible for the operation of the Convention in their countries, governmental and non-governmental entities engaged in disarmament issues, legal advisers, practitioners and academics engaged either in disarmament matters, general public international law and treaty law.

The 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction (CWC) bans an entire category of weapons of mass destruction. The CWC has now been in force for more than a decade, and has achieved almost universal adherence. To achieve its objectives, the CWC established the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). This second edition of OPCW: The Legal Texts brings together the text of the Convention, the interpretative decisions and understandings reached by the organs of the OPCW, policies, rules of procedure, regulations, the conclusions of the two reviews undertaken by the States Parties of the operation of the Convention and key background texts. The volume provides a comprehensive overview of the Convention regime, as it has developed over the last decade.

The Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction entered into force on 29 April 1997. The treaty sets a time-frame of 10-15 years to destroy all stockpiles of chemical weapons held by States Parties and all facilities used to produce them. To achieve those broad objectives, to monitor compliance and to provide a forum for States Parties, the Convention established an international organisation, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague. The OPCW is composed of three organs: the Conference of the States Parties, the Executive Council, and the Technical Secretariat. Actual implementation of the complex text requires interpretation by OPCW organs. OPCW: The Legal Texts draws together the text of the Convention, the interpretative decisions and understandings reached by the organs, the policies, model agreements, rules of procedure, regulations and key background texts.

The Chemical Weapons Convention is one of the cornerstone disarmament and arms control agreements, and the only global and comprehensive disarmament treaty that is being verified by an international agency. This Commentary assesses the provisions of the Convention and its implementation, with cross-cutting chapters providing a broader analysis.

This volume features a selection of the best scholarship on international law as it is relevant to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The essays consider the nonproliferation legal regime as a normative system and offer a more discrete consideration of international law in each weapons of mass destruction technology area: nuclear weapons proliferation; chemical and biological weapons proliferation; and delivery systems proliferation. In addition, the essays consider the closely related questions of the role, authority and track record of the UN Security Council in monitoring, implementing and enforcing compliance with these primary sources of nonproliferation law.

The world’s only annual publication devoted to the study of the laws of armed conflict, the Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law provides a truly international forum for high-quality, peer-reviewed academic articles focusing on this highly-topical branch of international law. The Yearbook also includes a selection of documents from the reporting period, many of which are not accessible elsewhere and a comprehensive bibliography of all recent publications in humanitarian law and other relevant fields. Ease of use of the Yearbook is guaranteed by the inclusion of a detailed index. Distinguished by its topicality and contemporary relevance, the Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law bridges the gap between theory and practice and serves as a useful reference tool for scholars, practitioners, military personnel, civil servants, diplomats, human rights workers and students.