The industry verification regime is one of the key instruments in pursuit of the object and purpose of the Chemical Weapons Convention (hereinafter “the Convention”). Since the Fourth Review Conference, the verification regime has performed effectively overall and played an important role in monitoring the destruction of chemical weapons stockpiles, preventing the re-emergence of chemical weapons, and enhancing mutual trust among States Parties.
Since the Fourth Review Conference, China has been continuously strengthening its national implementation legislation and regulation, such as amending and implementing the Rules for the Regulations on Monitored and Controlled Chemicals and the List of Schedules of Controlled Chemicals and other supporting legal documents, to reinforce the management of the scheduled and non-scheduled chemicals in accordance with the Convention. Efforts have also been made in carrying out training courses and providing inspection guidance to the local governments and chemical industries, aiming to further strengthen their capacity building for implementation of the Convention. China has been actively conducting education and outreach activities to raise public awareness of implementation, such as organizing a series of events nationwide to commemorate the anniversary of the entry into force of the Convention and the establishment of the OPCW. In 2022, China’s National Authority held a commemorative conference for the 25th anniversary of the entry into force of the Convention and carried out a variety of supporting activities, with more than 220,000 people participating.
China is the State Party with the largest number of declared and inspected facilities under Article VI of the Convention. Since 2018, China has submitted 12 national declarations and received 75 industrial inspections in total (as at December 31, 2022). All of the inspection reports have demonstrated that China has been faithfully and earnestly fulfilling its obligations under the Convention. Even against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic, China still tried its best and showed maximum flexibility to support the work of the Technical Secretariat (hereinafter “the Secretariat”) and several exceptions have been made in this regard, such as receiving on-site inspections over two consecutive weeks, arranging long-distance and inter-provincial sequential inspections of Schedule 2 facilities, setting up 5 temporary points of entry, and facilitating the entry of inspection missions during China’s official holidays. All of these measures have greatly contributed to reducing inspection backlog, improving efficiency and saving costs.
Meanwhile, China takes note of the problems and challenges that the industry verification is currently faced with in declaration, on-site inspection, policy making and implementation measures. China’s positions on the above issues are as follows:
1.Article VI of the Convention should be implemented in full, effective, and non-discriminatory manner to further enhance the effectiveness of the industry verification regime. Its modification and optimization should be proceeded bearing in mind the principle of not placing additional burdens on the industry and with the aim of improving effectiveness and efficiency. The inspection procedure, especially for the sequential inspection, should be simplified and the standardization of the regime should be further promoted, such as reducing the ambiguity and arbitrary discretion when evaluating the inspection outcomes. The mechanism to solve disagreements should also be improved to minimize the impact on the production and operation activities of chemical industries. Any temporary measures taken by the Secretariat must be consistent with the provisions of the Convention, and its mandate should be adopted by the policy-making organs such as the Executive Council or the Conference of the States Parties as pursuant to the procedures embedded in the Convention.
2.In the past 26 years since the entry into force of the Convention, it has witnessed rapid development in chemical industry and technology. Some of Schedule 2 chemicals have found increasingly extensive commercial applications and growing production quantities in the fields of construction, textile, pesticide, and pharmaceuticals. Thus, the classification guideline of “not produced in large commercial quantities for purposes not prohibited under the Convention” is no longer applicable to some of the Schedule 2 chemicals. States Parties and the Secretariat should take development and safety into account holistically, and carry out more research on Schedule 2 chemicals and scientific and technological advances. The provision of “avoiding hampering the economic or technological development of States Parties ” of Article XI should be faithfully implemented, to ensure that the achievements in chemistry could fully serve the benefit of mankind.
3.According to the inspection findings by the Secretariat, the following items are most frequently found to be falsely declared by State Parties: the main activities, the production capacity of declared Schedule 2 chemicals, the product group codes(PGC) of the discrete organic chemicals(DOC), the approximate number of DOC production plants and PSF-related plants. China suggests that the Secretariat should not only continue to amend the Declaration Handbook, but also take practical measures to clarify the declaration criteria and guidelines, in close consultation with States Parties, so as to further improve the accuracy of the declared information. For example, the Secretariat could make a filling guideline for declaring the main activities of scheduled chemicals in the plant, specify the methods for determining the production capacity of Schedule 2 chemicals, the PGC of common DOC and the classification criteria of the DOC plant sites. These measures could further reduce the discrepancies resulting from different understanding of the declaration requirements.
4.How to correctly identify DOC and accurately declare other chemical production facility (OCPF) is a common difficulty among chemical enterprises in declaration. In recent years, China has made unswerving efforts and attempts to improve the accuracy of declarations. In 2018, China complied a catalogue of around 9,000 DOCs, which includes: the official and common name (if any) of the chemical, the Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) number, PGC, molecular formula, containing PSF or not, structural formula, main purpose of use, etc. Following a joint cross-check with the Secretariat, China’s National Authority officially issued the Catalogue on Certain Discrete Organic Chemicals in 2019. As a public product for implementation and a reference to declaration submission, the Catalogue is free for download at home and abroad and has received widespread welcome. China proposes that the Secretariat could consider to establish an internal database of the DOCs for States Parties, so as to enhance their capability for identifying chemicals and improving the accuracy and completeness of their declarations.
5.Many symposiums, expert-level meetings and industry-cluster consultations under the framework of the OPCW have drawn the conclusion that the discrepancies in import, export and transfer among States Parties are not caused by the neglection or intentional false declaration, but rather by the varying national procedures of States Parties in collating the import and export aggregate data. China proposes that, as a reference for States Parties, the Secretariat should further specify the procedure for collecting import-export data and related declaration criteria, set a uniform standard for classifying the export destination and transit states for scheduled chemicals as well as a clearer declaration criteria for import-export scheduled chemicals among States Parties at the turn of the year. These proposals are aimed to address the root cause of the large number of data discrepancies in scheduled chemical transfer resulting from technical problems. Meanwhile, the Secretariat should encourage States Parties to solve the discrepancy through consultation, and provide platform for communication and cooperation, such as setting agenda items for discussion on transfer discrepancies during the National Authority meeting, regional meeting, etc.
6.According to a review report by the Secretariat, owing to market changes and growing environmental and health concerns regarding the halogenated flame retardants, the activities of Schedule 2B04 facilities has rapidly increased in recent years, whose declaration now accounts for 60-70% of the total Schedule 2 declared facilities and has apparently affected the inspection planning and activities of the OPCW. The Secretariat should, in accordance with the paragraph 20, Part VII of the Verification Annex of the Convention, review its current risk assessment methodology for Schedule 2 facilities and determine a proper frequency of their subsequent inspections based on their own risk levels, so as to set an effective mechanism to solve the backlog of Schedule 2 inspections. It also should be underlined that the selection approach for the subsequent inspections of Schedule 2 plant sites should be strictly in line with the risk assessment principle set by the Convention, and should be differentiated from the “random selection” mechanism applied for determining the inspected Schedule 3 and OCPF plant sites. In light of the increasingly extensive application of certain Scheduled 2B04 chemicals in civilian chemical industry, China proposes to review the risk of related plant sites and accordingly reduce their frequency of subsequent inspections.
7. With reference to the assessment by the Secretariat, the OCPF inspection is expected to reach a “tipping point” in the next 5-8 years. By then, the number of States Parties with uninspected OCPF plant sites will reduce from 50 to 30, which will negatively impact on the selection of inspected OCPF facilities and aggravate the imbalanced geographical distribution of inspections. With reference to Article VI of the Convention, each State Party shall subject facilities specified in Part IX of the Verification Annex to data monitoring and eventual on-site verification in accordance with that Part of the Verification Annex, unless otherwise decided by the Conference of States Parties pursuant to Paragraph 22, Part IX of the Verification Annex. According to Paragraph 11, Part IX of the Verification Annex of the Convention, “equitable geographical distribution of inspections” should be the primary weighting factor for randomly selecting the OCPF plant sites for inspection. China believes that the above-mentioned principles should be strictly observed. In the decision entitled “Policy Guidelines for Determining the Number of Article VI inspections” (EC-66/DEC.10) adopted by the Executive Council in 2011, it was clearly stated that “the length of time between two Article VI inspections in any one State Party should not exceed approximately eight years”. Therefore, China suggests that the OCPF plant sites whose initial inspection dates back more than a certain time span could be regarded as uninspected in the selection mechanism. The Secretariat should continue to optimize the selection methodology for OCPF inspection, and work out a sound and effective inspection plan by taking into account the risk of the plant sites and the principle of equitable geographical distribution. While prioritizing the uninspected plant sites, including the ones whose initial inspection dates back more than a certain period of time, the subsequent inspections could be focused on the plant sites with record of “uncertainty” and “issues requiring further attention (IRFA)” in their initial inspections, as well as those whose chemical production quantity and plant numbers contain a significant change.
8.The Secretariat should closely monitor the development of on-site analytical technology of the new generation, enhance its capacity of sampling and analysis accordingly, to further improve its inspection efficiency. In view of the high cost of transporting the required equipment and reagents, the inspection with on-site analysis should prioritize the Schedule 2 facilities with higher risk level that are subject to sampling and analysis under the Convention.
9. The Secretariat is encouraged to make full use of the ChemTech Center to provide States Parties with more training programs to enhance their capacity for implementation and receiving inspections with on-site analysis.