Antigua and Barbuda deposited its instrument of accession to the Chemical Weapons Convention with the Secretary-General of the United Nations on 29 August 2005. Antigua and Barbuda will become a State Party to the Chemical Weapons Convention on 28 September 2005, thirty days after the deposit of its instrument of accession, bringing the total number of OPCW Member States to 173.
By acceding to the CWC, Antigua and Barbuda has confirmed the universal validity of this multilateral instrument, which bans the development, production, stockpiling, use or transfer of chemical weapons, and enhances collective security through the verified elimination of an entire category of weapons of mass destruction. By implementing the CWC effectively and in full, Antigua and Barbuda will contribute both to strengthening the global chemical weapons ban, as well as the international community’s effort to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction. As Member States, it will also be entitled to benefit from the OPCW’s international cooperation and assistance programmes.
Antigua and Barbuda is the sixth member from the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) to join the Convention, following earlier ratifications by Dominica, Grenada, Saint Lucia, St Kitts and Nevis, and St Vincent and the Grenadines, thereby achieving complete universality of the CWC within this sub-region.
The Chemical Weapons Convention entered into force on 29 April 1997. The Convention’s implementing agency, the OPCW, is mandated to verify the elimination of chemical weapons and to prevent their re-emergence and their proliferation, while providing international assistance and protection in the event of the use, or threat of use, of chemical weapons, as well as to promote international cooperation in the peaceful uses of chemistry. To achieve an effective, global ban on chemical weapons, the OPCW strives to achieve universal adherence to the Convention. Currently, 12 States have signed, but have not yet ratified this treaty. A further 9 States have neither signed, nor ratified the Convention.
42/2005