In between celebrating the results of the NPT Review Conference, or bewailing its failure, depending on perspective, I thought it might be worthwhile to look at a related issue that has now been firmly tied to the NPT through the device of the 1995 Resolution on the Middle East. Specifically Chemical Weapons nonproliferation and disarmament.
Section IV, para. 7.c (ii) of the Conclusions and Recommendations for follow-on actions (C&RFFA) of the draft final declaration of the NPT RevCon specifically invites the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to prepare background documentation for the proposed 2012 Conference on the establishment of a Middle East Zone Free of Weapons of Mass Destruction.
From the standpoint of the OPCW this is a significant development directly contributing to the Secretariat’s ongoing effort to achieve Universalization of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). Given that Egypt, Israel and Syria are three of the most important CWC holdouts, and considering that all three are strongly suspected of maintaining CW arsenals this is especially true.
