Topic: Re-Evaluating the Chemical Weapons Convention
Country: Argentina
Delegate Name: Ethan Bonnell
School: Forest Hills Northern High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Argentina position papers GLIMUN 2017 committees
Chemical Weapons and Biological Weapons are some of the most dangerous weapons in human history, capable of destroying lives and cities efficiently and inhumanely. And the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) were important steps in securing the safety of all those around the world who could be in danger of these weapons. But as science has advanced, the weaknesses of these agreements being to show.
There are four states which are non-signatories to the CWC, and more which are non-signatories to the BWC, though the process of becoming a signatory has begun in many of those states. But while the CWC does a good job regulating chemical weapons for its signatories, non-signatories are free to store chemical weapons without fear of repercussion. And this can be potentially hazardous, as we saw with the actions of Syria in the past decade. Argentina believes it would be beneficial to expand some parts of these agreements to all countries, which would make it easier to regulate the storage of chemical weapons for all states and for non-state actors. It would also be beneficial, in the opinion of Argentina to combine the CWC and the BWC in order to better stop countries from utilizing loopholes in regulations about the destruction of chemical weapons to keep stocks of weapons legally. Third, Argentina would recommend that the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) better ensures compliance with any new regulations in the storage of chemical weapons that also may serve a commercial purpose as to prevent countries from potentially stockpiling dangerous chemical weapons for military use under the guise of industry.
