In 1997, for instance, the verification system for the Chemical Weapons Treaty was devised by the world's chemical-manufacturing associations.
When she sits down with her senior aides each morning, they reel off two-minute reports on North Korean famine, the chemical-weapons treaty pending in Congress, the hostage standoff in Peru.
The U.S. Senate should reject ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), a treaty that purports to ban chemical weapons and forbid their production, stockpiling, and use.
What is more, even the current treaty limiting chemical weapons one banning their first use has been repeatedly violated.
These include the ABM Treaty, the Limited Test Ban Treaty and chemical weapons conventions as well as other international agreements such as the Helsinki Final Act.
We must expect that, should a treaty outlawing chemical weapons ever be achieved, persuading others that a given country (the Soviet Union, for example) is violating the agreement will become still more difficult.
Last year, after Senate hearings on the Chemical Weapons Convention revealed that the treaty is unverifiable and could have a negative impact on U.S. national security, its ratification was sidetracked for a time.
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Completing a new and utterly unverifiable treaty banning chemical weapons as the Bush administration is determined to do will simply add yet another technology to the list of biological and toxin weapons possessed by renegade nations, but not by those that abide by international agreements.
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This week he asked it to ratify another four-year-old treaty, the Chemical Weapons Convention, which would make Russia destroy 40, 000 metric tonnes of chemical agents.
Whatever the reason, the fact is that even in the absence of a treaty banning production of chemical weapons it is excruciatingly difficult to get international agreement that a given activity is related to chemical weapons manufacture.
In January 1989, after all the photographs of gassed Iranian soldiers and Kurds had been filed in the chanceries of the enlightened nations, the world's diplomats gathered in Paris and resolutely resolved to negotiate another treaty that would prohibit chemical weapons.
Should the Administration remain unwilling to follow such a course, the Center believes the Senate must insist that the emerging U.S.-Soviet bilateral chemical weapons agreement take the form of a treaty so as to safeguard both its prerogatives as a partner in the treaty-making process and the security of the United States.
If these were not grounds enough to sack the Chemical Weapons Convention, another one looms large: The treaty will impose substantial new cost, inspection and reporting requirements on a host of industries that have nothing to do with chemical weapons or even chemical manufacturing.
If these were not grounds enough to sack the Chemical Weapons Convention, another one looms large: The treaty will impose substantial new cost, inspection and reporting requirements on a host of industries that have nothing to do with chemical weapons -- or even chemical manufacturing.
In other words, the treaty is about other nations destroying their chemical weapons.
Several countries in the Middle East have refused to sign the Chemical Weapons Convention until Israel signs the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Therefore, it is not responsible to pretend that the treaty will appreciably impede the production of chemical weapons by terrorist groups or by dishonest government regimes, even if those regimes choose cynically to endorse the ban.
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These companies probably would be willing to accept such risks and sacrifices if the treaty actually meant ridding the world of heinous chemical weapons.
In addition, Russia continues to violate its international arms control obligations, including -- but not limited to -- the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, the INF Treaty, the START I Treaty, the Biological Weapons Convention and various chemical weapons conventions.
Those on Mr Bush's worry-list have nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, or are trying hard to get them, despite treaty promises not to.
If, in contrast to the Chemical Weapons Convention, Republican ranks are unified, this fatally flawed arms control treaty will surely be defeated in the Senate.
Contrary to its announced purpose, this foolish treaty would increase, not eliminate, the risk of chemical weapons use, and would seriously damage U.S. national security interests.
From the failure of the world to condemn Iraq when it actually used chemical weapons, we further know that no real sanction is likely even if a treaty violation is unmistakable.
Against all these grounds for rejecting the Chemical Weapons Convention, the administration and other proponents have been reduced to claiming that the treaty will establish an "international norm" against the development, production, acquisition, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons.
For some reasons that treaty supporters acknowledge and some they do not the Chemical Weapons Convention must be defeated.
For some reasons that treaty supporters acknowledge -- and some they do not -- the Chemical Weapons Convention must be defeated.
The relevant question is whether the treaty will allow us to know more about the many nations engaged in chemical weapons proliferation.
Thanks to that treaty, countries like Iran that are known to have ongoing covert chemical-weapons programs are being given a wholly unwarranted clean bill of health.
With the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) awaiting action by the U.S. Senate, the treaty's supporters are asserting that the Tokyo subway poison gas attack demonstrates the need for U.S. ratification.
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