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Advice from the Scientific Advisory Board of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons on isotopically labelled chemicals and stereoisomers in relation to the Chemical Weapons Convention

The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) is an international disarmament treaty that prohibits the development, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons. This treaty has 193 States Parties (nations for which the treaty is binding) and entered into force in 1997. The CWC contains schedules of chemicals that have been associated with chemical warfare programmes. These scheduled chemicals must be declared by the States that possess them and are subject to verification by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW, the implementing body of the CWC). Isotopically labelled and stereoisomeric variants of the scheduled chemicals have presented ambiguities for interpretation of the requirements of treaty implementation, and advice was sought from the OPCW’s Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) in 2016. The SAB provided advice useful to resolving these ambiguities, and the technical information compiled and reviewed by the SAB is described herein. The advice provided should benefit scientists and diplomats from the CWC’s State Parties to help ensure a consistent approach to their declarations of scheduled chemicals. In this report, isotopically labelled and stereoisomeric variants of CWC-scheduled chemicals are reviewed, and the impact of the SAB advice in influencing a change to national licensing in one of the State Parties is discussed. This outcome, an update to national licensing governing compliance to an international treaty, serves as an example of the effectiveness of science diplomacy within an international disarmament treaty.

Annex on Chemicals ; BZ ; chemical warfare agent ; Chemical Weapons Convention ; diastereomer ; enantiomer ; isotope ; isotopically labelled ; nitrogen mustard ; Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) ; organophosphorus nerve agent ; sarin ; scheduled chemical ; science policy ; science diplomacy ; stereoisomer ; sulfur mustard ; vesicant

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