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THE HAGUE, June 27 (Xinhua) — Member states of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) voted on Wednesday in favor of a controversial Britain-led proposal to expand the power of the global chemical watchdog to not only identify the use of chemical weapons, but also assign blame.
On the second day of their meeting, member states adopted the UK-drafted decision by a vote of 82 in favor and 24 against. The OPCW has 193 members. According to the OPCW rules, a two-third majority of the members present, minus abstention, is needed to adopt the proposal.
The British proposal “decides that the Secretariat shall put in place arrangements to identify the perpetrators of the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian Arab Republic by identifying and reporting on all information potentially relevant to the origin of those chemical weapons in those instances in which the OPCW Fact-Finding Mission in Syria determines or has determined that use or likely use occurred, and cases for which the OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mechanism has not issued a report”.
Backed by countries like France, Germany and the United States, such an expansion of power of the OPCW is strongly opposed by Russia, Iran and Syria. They believe that attribution of responsibility goes beyond the mandate of the OPCW.
The OPCW was founded in 1997 as the implementing body for the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which entered into force that year to prohibit the use of chemical weapons and require their destruction. In previous investigations of alleged use of chemical weapons, the OPCW fact-finding-missions only had a say on whether and what chemical weapons have been used.
The UK draft decision was “a clear attempt here to manipulate the mandate of the OPCW,” Russia’s deputy minister for industry and trade Georgy Kalamanov told member states on Tuesday. “The only international body or international court who can decide who would be guilty when we are dealing with members of the United Nations is the Security Council,” the minister said.

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