Nations vote to empower chemical weapons watchdog to name perpetrators of attacks
World powers backed a British-led proposal yesterday to give a global chemical weapons monitor more powers, after a vote that pitted Russia and ally Syria against the West.
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) will now have the power to apportion blame to countries that carry out attacks using toxic arms.
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who spoke at the two-day special session held in The Hague in the Netherlands and personally lobbied ministers from 25 countries on the initiative, hailed the move.
“Chemical weapons are an affront to human dignity and have no place in the 21st century,” said Mr Johnson.
“The international community has quite rightly come together today to strengthen the ban on chemical weapons and prevent impunity for their use.”
The proposal – passed by 82 votes to 24 – was opposed by Russia and Iran, allies of the Syrian government, which was accused of using chemical weapons in the seven-year civil war. Moscow, too, has been accused of breaching international laws on chemical weapons.
Britain accused Russia of being behind the poisoning of double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, England, in March. Moscow has denied any involvement.
Earlier yesterday, the Russian embassy in the Netherlands said Britain had failed to provide “any hard evidence for the so-called Skripals case”.
In a Twitter post it said the UK government had “embroiled their allies in the blatant campaign against Russia. Now they try to drag the #OPCW in their games at the 4th special session of the CSP”.
Before the vote, Iran, Venezuela, Kazakhstan and Belarus attempted to table four amendments, which were defeated.
“Belarus’s amendment to the decision we and others tabled to strengthen @OPCW would have gutted it and made it impossible to identify the perpetrators of CW attacks,” British ambassador Peter Wilson said in a tweet.
The use of chemical weapons is illegal under international law.
But they have been used increasingly since 2012, mainly in Syria, but also in Iraq and Malaysia, where the VX nerve agent was used in the killing of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s half-brother, Kim Jong-nam.
Before the vote, the OPCW, which oversees a 1997 treaty banning the use of toxins as weapons, had the technical expertise to assess what chemical weapons were used, but it did not possess powers to name perpetrators.
The responsibility of apportioning blame for chemical weapons attacks in Syria had been held by a joint UN-OPCW team, known as the Joint Investigative Mechanism, from 2015 to 2017.
But Russia used its power of veto on the UN Security Council to stop the body’s mandate being extended and it was disbanded in November.
Yesterday’s diplomatic victory for the UK, which needed a two-thirds majority, will allow the OPCW to pick up where the disbanded body left off.