The Government of Lebanon has deposited its instrument of accession to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) with the Secretary General of the United Nations. The Convention, whose goal is the universal ban of chemical weapons, will enter into force for Lebanon 30 days after the deposit, which was announced by Lebanon on 20 November 2008.

Lebanon will become the 185^th State Party to the Chemical Weapons Convention.

Following Lebanon’s accession, the Director-General of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) – the implementing body of the CWC based in The Hague, called upon “those 10 remaining States that have not yet adhered to the CWC to do so without delay.”

“Assistance and protection”

The Convention aims to eliminate an entire category of weapons of mass destruction by prohibiting the development, production, acquisition and use of chemical weapons. All States Parties to the CWC are obliged to declare and destroy any stockpiles of chemical weapons they may hold and any facilities which produced them, as well as any chemical weapons they abandoned on the territory of other States Parties in the past.

As a State Party, Lebanon will now be eligible to benefit from the OPCW’s international cooperation and assistance programmes, which provide support in drafting and enacting the legislation necessary to implement the Convention at the national level.

Under the CWC, all Member States have pledged to provide assistance and protection to fellow Member States threatened by the use of chemical weapons or attacked with chemical weapons.

Four signatory States to the CWC have not yet ratified the Convention: the Bahamas, Israel, the Dominican Republic and Myanmar.

Six further States have neither ratified nor acceded to the Chemical Weapons Convention: Angola, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea), Egypt, Iraq and Syria.

Press release