The Cold War divisions of yesteryear appear here to stay. At least for the near future. And in the latest episode of these great games the question of chemical weapons has come to represent the most of recent battleground. Thus far Britain is in the lead. It has, after all, succeeded in winning the vote — by 82 to 24 — to expand the powers of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to include pinpointing culpability. This is a must, according to Boris Johnson, who has described such weapons programmes as “an affront to human dignity”. The OPCW is best described as the implementing body of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). To date, some 193 nation states have signed the CWC. Experts have confirmed that as of January of this year more than 96 percent of global (declared) chemical weapon stockpiles now stand destroyed. Unsurprisingly, the OPCW, which came into force back in 1997, is hailed as the world’s most successful multilateral disarmament treaty. Yet not everyone is happy about the vote. Namely, Russia, Iran and Syria. The contention being that the OPCW is moving beyond its legal mandate and that only such bodies as the UN Security Council have the authority to apportion blame based on fact-finding missions. While there is merit to this, the UNSC itself remains an undemocratic structure given the veto privilege rests in the hand of the permanent five. A point not lost on Moscow. That being said, the British resolution that was supported by both the EU and US is viewed by Russia as being politically motivated. Not least because it makes mention of investigating alleged chemical attacks by the Syrian regime; something that both Moscow and Damascus deny and which has been pooh-poohed at one time or another by award-winning investigative journalists Seymour Hersh and Robert Fisk. Then there is the not un-small matter of Downing Street accusing the Kremlin of being behind the Salisbury toxic poisoning case that occurred back in March. The sad truth is that the international system is, indeed, a highly politicised one. If it were otherwise, the British resolution would have gone beyond denouncing the use of chemical weapons since 2012 in Iraq and Malaysia as well as Syria and the UK. To simultaneously propose a comprehensive mechanism of punitive measures to deal with those nations that see fit to launch wars of aggression against sovereign states on the premise of non-existent WMDs. We live in a world administered by a complex structure of interconnectivity. At the heart of this lies the prevailing international legal system; which is, when all said and done, consensual in nature. There are laws to govern everything from the ins-and-outs of dispute resolution to conduct in war and everything else in between. Yet the fact some countries ‘enjoy’ nuclear capability and others are eagerly pursuing them; while the global arms race shows no signs of slowing down does not bode well for the future. Indeed, it undermines all efforts towards disarmament. For those states that surrender their chemical weapons programmes still have, for the most part, access to the latest and deadliest big boy toys of modern warfare. The time has therefore come for the world to collectively recognise all military weapons as being of mass destruction. For bluntly put, unless and until it moves towards eventual and complete disarmament — it is more than human dignity that is being affronted. It is life itself. * Published in Daily Times, June 30th 2018.