Via the Armchair Generalist, it appears that India has successfully eliminated its chemical weapon stockpiles. India has become the third nation to eliminate its known stockpile of chemical weapons, the organization that monitors adherence to the Chemical Weapons Convention announced last week.
India on March 26 notified the Technical Secretariat to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons that it had completed operations, according to OPCW Director General Rogelio Pfirter.
There are 188 nations party to the Chemical Weapons Convention, including four additional declared possessors of chemical weapons (Libya, the United States, Russia, and Iraq). Iraq will leave that list in a very short time, after it completes destruction of some legacy weapons. Seven states (Angola, Egypt, Israel, Myanmar, North Korea, Somalia, and Syria) remain outside the convention. Among signatories, there is lingering suspicion about the chemical arsenals of Pakistan, Iran, and China, but little hard evidence.Broadly, there are three arguments as to why states are willing to give up their chemical weapons. The first is that such weapons have little battlefield utility; the second is that there is a moral taboo against their use; and the third is that the legal requirements of arms-control agreements have forced states to eliminate their programs. These arguments are not mutually exclusive: Chemical weapons have little utility in battle because of the legal and moral consequences of their use, and international agreements have been created in response to a moral consensus. In any case, the elimination of India's stockpile is a strong positive step for international arms-control efforts.
--Robert Farley
