Development of Verification Procedures for the Chemical Weapons Convention

In 1984, the U.S. established a framework for the Chemical Weapons Convention (CMC) through the introduction of a draft treaty proposal by then Vice President Bush. To support continuing negotiations to finalize the convention text, a research program was initiated in 1990 within the Department of Defense to determine how and to what extent the CWC can be verified. This paper presents the methodology and tasks underway at the Chemical Research, Development and Engineering Center, to address these questions. The effort emphasizes the application of available technology and hardware for chemical weapons verification and the testing of this hardware at representative U.S. sites. Findings to date and identified technology gaps are presented.