Truth or Consequences #2: Senate Does Not Need To Sacrifice Sensible Scrutiny of C.W.C. to Meet an Artificial Deadline

(Washington, D.C.): A centerpiece of
the Clinton Administration’s campaign to
obtain expedited Senate action on the
controversial Chemical Weapons Convention
(CWC) is the argument that something
terrible will happen if the treaty is not
ratified by April 29^th.
Precisely what the terrible something is
— and what its implications for U.S.
interests will be –has proved to be a
little hard to pin down. The
reason for this is because there will
be no significant harm if the Senate
declines to rubber-stamp this
ill-conceived Convention in response to
what amounts to a wholly artificial
deadline.

The CWC Is Incomplete

Clinton Administration officials claim
that if the United States doesn’t ratify
the Chemical Weapons Convention before 29
April, it will be unable to participate
in deliberations at the Organization for
the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons
(OPCW) which will “flesh out”
some critical issues. The Administration
thus admits that the treaty
awaiting the advice and consent of the
United States Senate is not a
finished document.

In the Bush Administration’s haste to
have a Convention ready for signature
prior to its departure from office, a
number of details — for example,
particulars concerning the conduct of
on-site inspections — were left
unresolved. They were to be finalized by
a preparatory commission prior to
entry-into-force. Such details can have
important consequences.

CWC advocates point to this reality as
a compelling reason for getting the
United States to ratify the treaty before
April 29^th (the date on which
the Convention is supposed to enter into
force). But they cannot have it both
ways: If the details yet to be worked out
may materially affect the acceptability
of the treaty, the Senate is being asked
to sign on to a work- in-progress — or
perhaps a pig-in-a-poke since the
negotiations may or may not come out
acceptably. On the other hand, if the
treaty is ripe for Senate
approval, the details that remain to be
sorted out should not be so important. In
that case, the argument that the United
States must participate in their
negotiation as a state party is not
compelling.

The United States is Already
Involved in the Ongoing Negotiations

The truth is that the United States is
already participating in the preparatory
commission’s negotiations on the CWC’s
outstanding details, even before the
Senate gives its advice and consent. As a
result, the Administration is being
represented, notwithstanding the fact
that the U.S. has yet to become a state
party.

Russia Is Not a State
Party, Either

Another nation has to have a keen
interest in the outcome of these
negotiations: Russia. In fact, the
Kremlin has already served notice that if
the OPCW proceeds to finalize the CWC’s
implementation and other outstanding
particulars in ways unsatisfactory to
Russia’s interests, Moscow will never
agree to ratify.

European and other states parties
appear to have taken this Russian threat
seriously and seem increasingly
disinclined to complete work on the
treaty’s details pending Russia’s
ratification.⁽¹⁾
If so, the United States should feel no
undue pressure to complete its own
ratification debate. In any event, it is
far from clear why the U.S. should feel
compelled to ratify the treaty before
Russia does. After all, Russia has the
world’s largest arsenal of chemical
weapons, continues to produce new and
more dangerous chemical arms and is
widely expected to continue to do so even
if Russia becomes a state party.

The United States Will Have
Considerable Influence Irrespective of
When It Joins the CWC

By virtue of the immense size,
technological advantages and valuable
products of the U.S. commercial chemical
industry, the United States will
inevitably be the “600-pound
gorilla” in the OPCW if and when it
decides to become a state party. The
contention that the preferences of the
United States will be ignored in the
implementation of the CWC is,
consequently, implausible.

This is particularly true since
Washington will be expected to pay 25% of
the OPCW’s operating costs — a
substantially larger portion of the
organization’s budget than will be borne
by any other nation. Even if, as the
Clinton Administration claims, this tithe
will amount to no more than $25 million
annually,⁽²⁾
such a sum represents an obvious source
of leverage should the United States need
to exercise it to protect its interests
in OPCW deliberations.

The United States Will Have
Standing Irrespective of When It Ratifies
the CWC

CWC proponents suggest that, if the
United States does not ratify the treaty
by 29 April, it will not be an original
state party — condemning it to
second-class status with adverse
implications for its ability to have its
personnel participate in on-site
inspections. In fact, by virtue of its
being among the first nations to sign
this Convention, the United States will
in accordance with standard diplomatic
practice be considered to be an original
state party whenever it chooses to join
the treaty regime.

While it is true that, until that
time, the United States will not be able
to have its personnel conduct on-site
inspections, this may well prove to be
the case even if the U.S. does
ratify the CWC! In fact, countries being
subjected to challenge inspections have
the right to deny individual inspectors
entry. Those nations unfriendly to the
United States and, presumably, of
greatest concern from a compliance point
of view, are likely to exercise this
right to preclude U.S. monitors. After
all, if there is any prospect that an
on-site inspector will be able to detect
an illegal, covert chemical weapons
program, chances are that it will be an
American that does it.

(Unfortunately, those chances
are likely to be reduced dramatically
should the Clinton Administration succeed
in an initiative now being discussed in
the interagency process, one that would
start sharing with the OPCW sensitive
U.S. methods for detecting clandestine
programs. Similar training given
to the International Atomic Energy Agency
gave representatives of Saddam Hussein’s
government and other rogue states
invaluable lessons in how to defeat
international monitoring and on-site
inspection regimes.)

For its part, however, the United
States will find it difficult — if not
impossible as a practical matter — to
object to all of the foreign inspectors
whose participation in challenge
inspections in this country will be of
concern. Needless to say, this will not
be because of any danger that a covert
American CW program will be detected
since the U.S. will have no such program.
Rather, it will be because such
individuals will assuredly try to
expropriate confidential business
information (CBI) or other sensitive data
from the targeted U.S. facilities.

The Bottom Line

In short, the April 29^th
deadline is an artificial one, promoted
principally so as to try to force the
United States Senate to complete action
on the Chemical Weapons Convention
without further, substantive
consideration of this accord’s myriad
shortcomings. So artificial is this
deadline that the Clinton Administration
bears considerable responsibility for
creating it. After all, the
Administration last October vigorously
encouraged Hungary to become the 65^th
nation to deposit its instruments of
ratification, thereby starting the clock
on the six-month run-up to
entry-into-force. Its transparent purpose
in doing so was to intensify pressure on
the Senate to provide its uninformed
advice and consent.

If anything, the Administration’s
efforts to try to foreshorten or confuse
the debate about the Chemical Weapons
Convention suggest that the
Senate would be well advised to defer
U.S. ratification until after
the treaty enters into force.
Doing so would afford an opportunity to
validate — or disprove — the various
concerns being expressed by this treaty’s
knowledgeable critics. It may, in fact,
be the only way such concerns can be
fully and authoritatively addressed
without grave risk to American security,
commercial and taxpayer interests.

Last but not least, it must be said
that a treaty not worth ratifying
is assuredly not worth ratifying quickly.
For reasons described at length
elsewhere,⁽³⁾
it would be unsafe to ratify the CWC at
any speed.

– 30 –

1. There are
as-yet- unsubstantiated rumors
circulating in The Hague (where the
Organization for the Prohibition of
Chemical Weapons or OPCW is located) that
the date of entry into force may be
postponed, rather than have the CWC come
into effect without the participation of
nations such as Russia and possibly China
(which has yet to deposit the instruments
of ratification).

3. See, for
example, Truth or
Consequences #1: Center Challenges
Administration Efforts to Distort,
Suppress Debate on C.W.C. ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=97-D_14″>No. 97-D 14, 28
January 1997). Other products detailing
the CWC’s fatal flaws can be obtained via
the Center’s site on the World Wide Web
(www.security-policy.org).