Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons

A wor­thy choice:

The Nor­we­gian Nobel Com­mit­tee has decid­ed that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2013 is to be award­ed to the Orga­ni­za­tion for the Pro­hi­bi­tion of Chem­i­cal Weapons (OPCW) for its exten­sive efforts to elim­i­nate chem­i­cal weapons.

Dur­ing World War One, chem­i­cal weapons were used to a con­sid­er­able degree. The Gene­va Con­ven­tion of 1925 pro­hib­it­ed the use, but not the pro­duc­tion or stor­age, of  chem­i­cal weapons.

Dur­ing World War Two, chem­i­cal means were employed in Hitler’s mass exter­mi­na­tions. Chem­i­cal weapons have sub­se­quent­ly been put to use on numer­ous occa­sions by both states and ter­ror­ists. In 1992–93, a con­ven­tion was drawn up pro­hibit­ing also the pro­duc­tion and stor­age of such weapons. It came into force in 1997. Since then the OPCW has, through inspec­tions, destruc­tion and by oth­er means, sought the imple­men­ta­tion of the con­ven­tion. 189 states have acced­ed to the con­ven­tion to date.

The con­ven­tions and the work of the OPCW have defined the use of chem­i­cal weapons as a taboo under inter­na­tion­al law. Recent events in Syr­ia, where chem­i­cal weapons have again been put to use, have under­lined the need to enhance the efforts to do away with such weapons. Some states are still not mem­bers of the OPCW. Cer­tain states have not observed the dead­line, which was April 2012, for destroy­ing their chem­i­cal weapons. This applies espe­cial­ly to the USA [Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca] and Russia.

Dis­ar­ma­ment fig­ures promi­nent­ly in Alfred Nobel’s will. The Nor­we­gian Nobel Com­mit­tee has through numer­ous prizes under­lined the need to do away with nuclear weapons.

By means of the present award to the OPCW, the Com­mit­tee is seek­ing to con­tribute to the elim­i­na­tion of chem­i­cal weapons.

Empha­sis is ours.

Con­grat­u­la­tions are in order to the peo­ple who car­ry out OPCW’s work, and par­tic­u­lar­ly the inspec­tors who are in Syr­ia now over­see­ing the destruc­tion of the Assad regime’s chem­i­cal weapons arse­nal. Their efforts so far and their future efforts are cer­tain­ly wor­thy of the recog­ni­tion the Nobel Peace Prize bestows.

Near­ly every coun­try in the world is a mem­ber of the OPCW; few­er than a dozen coun­tries are not. OPCW actu­al­ly main­tains a list of non-mem­bers on its web­site, which con­sist of the fol­low­ing nations:

1. Ango­la
2. Egypt
3. North Korea
4. South Sudan
5. Syr­ia

South Sudan is a very young nation and will hope­ful­ly rat­i­fy the Chem­i­cal Weapons Con­ven­tion before long. The oth­er nations have no excuse for not hav­ing signed and rat­i­fied the treaty. Syr­ia did just agree a few weeks ago to join the Con­ven­tion, but it is not offi­cial­ly a mem­ber yet. That leaves three oth­er long­stand­ing non-mem­bers: Ango­la, Egypt, and North Korea.

Addi­tion­al­ly, there are two nations that have signed the Con­ven­tion but not rat­i­fied it: Israel and Myan­mar. Israel and Myan­mar should make rat­i­fi­ca­tion a pri­or­i­ty and join the list of mem­ber states, which, as men­tioned, include near­ly all of the world’s nations. Israel hap­pens to have the dis­tinc­tion of being the only democ­ra­cy that has not rat­i­fied. That’s embar­rass­ing. Israeli lead­ers have sug­gest­ed they won’t rat­i­fy the treaty until its neigh­bors (Egypt and Syr­ia) do. That is not leadership.

Many of Israel’s sons and daugh­ters have ances­tors or rel­a­tives who were vic­tims of Adolf Hitler’s gas cham­bers. The Israeli peo­ple know of the hor­rors of chem­i­cal weapons. They should demand that their gov­ern­ment rat­i­fy the Chem­i­cal Weapons Con­ven­tion imme­di­ate­ly. Then Israel will be in a bet­ter posi­tion to demand that its neigh­bor to the south, Egypt, do the same. And the world will be safer.

(Syr­ia, as not­ed above, has agreed to join the Convention).

As the Nobel Com­mit­tee men­tioned, the Unit­ed States and Rus­sia have yet to fin­ish dis­man­tling chem­i­cal weapons stock­piles, which are the largest known stock­piles. We need to get that done. We’ve already missed the final April 2012 deadline.

There is no good rea­son why these arse­nals should exist. The use of chem­i­cal weapons against any foe by either us or the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion would be a war crime. Since these weapons have no pur­pose except to ter­ror­ize, kill, and maim on a grand scale, we should get rid of them. All of them. Everywhere.

A plan­et free of chem­i­cal weapons is a wor­thy goal that the world com­mu­ni­ty has agreed on. That’s why we have the Chem­i­cal Weapons Convention.

We should ful­ly com­ply with our treaty oblig­a­tions and ensure that every last one of our chem­i­cal weapons are destroyed, and the byprod­ucts dis­posed of as safe­ly as pos­si­ble with­out harm­ing the envi­ron­ment. And we should work to ensure that every oth­er nation, par­tic­u­lar­ly the OPCW non-mem­ber states, does likewise.

Again, con­grat­u­la­tions to the OPCW for win­ning this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.