Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
04THEHAGUE1550
2004-06-22 13:50:00
UNCLASSIFIED
Embassy The Hague
Cable title:  

CHEMICAL WEAPONS CONVENTION (CWC) - WRAP-UP FOR

Tags:  PARM PREL EIND CWC 
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This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.
UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 05 THE HAGUE 001550 

SIPDIS

STATE FOR AC/CB, NP/CBM, VC/CCB, L/ACV, IO/S
SECDEF FOR OSD/ISP
JOINT STAFF FOR DD PMA-A FOR WTC
COMMERCE FOR BIS (GOLDMAN)
NSC FOR JOECK
WINPAC FOR LIEPMAN

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PARM PREL EIND CWC
SUBJECT: CHEMICAL WEAPONS CONVENTION (CWC) - WRAP-UP FOR
JUNE 14-18 INDUSTRY CONSULTATIONS

-------
SUMMARY
-------

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 05 THE HAGUE 001550

SIPDIS

STATE FOR AC/CB, NP/CBM, VC/CCB, L/ACV, IO/S
SECDEF FOR OSD/ISP
JOINT STAFF FOR DD PMA-A FOR WTC
COMMERCE FOR BIS (GOLDMAN)
NSC FOR JOECK
WINPAC FOR LIEPMAN

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PARM PREL EIND CWC
SUBJECT: CHEMICAL WEAPONS CONVENTION (CWC) - WRAP-UP FOR
JUNE 14-18 INDUSTRY CONSULTATIONS

--------------
SUMMARY
--------------


1. (U) The following are the results of the June 14-17
facilitations on industry issues. Schedule 1 captive use
remains under consideration due to differences in opinion
over whether or not a decision clarifying the declarability
of Schedule 1 'captive use' production is necessary. On one
hand, since there is no evidence that such production exists,
a decision seems ceremonial. On the other hand, even if
there exists no such production, the knowledge and technology
to produce such chemicals in captive use situations is widely
available, particularly in the case of pharmaceutical
manufacturing (e.g., pethidine). Discussions on low
concentrations for Amiton, PFIB and BZ whittled down the
proposed decision text to two open items: specific
concentration percentages and whether States Parties should
apply one percentage to all three chemicals or disparate
percentages for each.


2. (U) With regard to Schedule 2 Facility Agreements,
proposed EC-37 report language encouraging the Technical
Secretariat to adopt more flexible criteria in determining

SIPDIS
not to conclude such agreements appears to have consensus.
The discussions also produced agreed EC-37 report language
for marking of Schedule 1 chemicals in the Handbook on
Chemicals to indicate chemicals which have been declared in
amounts greater than 100 grams by States Parties to the TS
since entry into force. Discussions on other chemical
production facilities (OCPF) site selection made progress in
terms of a path forward for discussions, but made little
progress on minimizing substantive differences regarding
accommodation of State Parties' proposals or enhance
transparency and/or accountability in the allocation of TS
nomination points. End Summary.

--------------
Captive Use
--------------


3. (U) The facilitator (Rudduck, UK) held Schedule 1
Captive Use consultations on June 15. The discussions remain
deadlocked between two schools of thought on the need for a
clarification of Schedule 1 captive use. One school holds

that Art. II definitions must remain consistent and that
clarifying 'captive use' as declarable for Schedule 1 makes
legal/common sense, given the availability of knowledge and
technology regarding past captive use Schedule 1 production.
Germany is a staunch advocate of this position and the UK,
France and U.S. also tend to fall into this category. The
second school says that since there is no known production,
despite the fact that several old patents exist, there is no
reason to 'regulate for the sake of regulation.' Canada,
Russian Federation, India, and China fall into this category.



4. (U) During discussions, the facilitator reviewed the
fact that there is evidence 'pethidine' is being produced
(comes from the licensing activity required under the "1961
Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and the 1972 Additional
Protocol to that Convention"). Pethidine is one of the
examples offered by Germany as having a historical process,
publicly available via several EU and U.S. patents, that uses
nitrogen mustard as an intermediate in a captive use
situation. Specifically, the facilitator indicated that as
of 2000, Brazil, Germany, India, Japan, Netherlands, Spain,
UK, U.S. and Australia all license and produce pethidine, as
reported to the UN, although UK experts admit that it is not
known which process is used in each country (whether the
conversion is made straight from the nitrogen mustard (NM)
salt or by 'captively producing' the NM base).


5. (U) UK experts informed Del that their companies do not
use the NM route, and suspected the U.S. producers use the
same process. Del understands that pre-1995, many western
companies, including U.S. producers, changed pathways to
manufacture such pharmaceuticals to avoid being captured by
the Schedule 1 obligations surfacing in the CW Convention
Preparatory Commission. On the technical side, Germany
indicated the only difference between the two routes is the
ph levels in the process. UK experts provided the following
info to Del regarding US licensed and declared producers of
pethidine:
Johnson Matthey, Inc., West Deptford, NJ
Mallinckrodt Chemical, St. Louis, MO
Organichem Corp, Rensselaer, NY


6. (U) ACTION REQUEST: Del requests any available
information on the processes used and concerns with
production of Schedule 1 chemicals, particularly if this
information runs counter to what Del understands to be the
case that no Schedule 1 production is ongoing in the U.S. as
described above and that any company that did produce using
previous pathways subsequently changed those routes in
anticipation of CWC implementation. The concern is that
clarifying that 'captive' production of Schedule 1 chemicals
in this manner may push SP (if they have not considered S1
captive use to be declared) over the aggregate one tonne
limit in these instances.

--------------
Schedule 2A/2A* - Low Concentrations
--------------


7. (U) For discussions on June 15, the facilitator
requested the discussions be approached as a dual-track
exercise. Given that significant disagreement remains over
the exact percentages to be applied to the three chemicals
(Amiton, PFIB and BZ),the facilitator requested delegates to
focus on editing changes to the provided draft decision text.
Working from the text distributed in May 2004, the
facilitator hoped this would help eliminate the underbrush of
the discussions, leaving the only issue the precise
concentration limits to be applied.


8. (U) Regarding preambular text changes, the facilitator
agreed to eliminate paragraph 3 due to redundancy with
paragraph 5, in accordance with requests from both the
Russian and UK delegations. Del requested inserting a
preambular paragraph referencing C-7/Dec. 8 in exchange for
eliminating redundancy in operative paragraphs 14 and 18.
Specifically, paragraph 4 of C-7/Dec.8 already codifies that
indirect measurements or calculations are acceptable basis
for declaration. The facilitator agreed to make this change.
Of note, this reference also clarifies the applicability of
the boundaries of production text in that both quantity and
concentrations must be exceeded, simultaneously, during
production. The language in paragraphs 13 and 17 are
therefore, also clarified by the preambular reference to
C-7/Dec.8 in that the proposed decision text could be read to
suggest that quantities and concentrations could considered
independent for purposes of declaration. Preambular
paragraphs 7 and 8 were also merged, at the request of the UK.


9. (U) Apart from eliminating paragraphs 14 and 18, few
changes were made to the operative paragraphs. The Italian
delegation requested that a note be included in the document
citing that no agreement has yet been reached on the usage of
one percentage for all three chemicals or whether there would
be disparate percentages applied. The Italians favor a
single percentage approach and are concerned the structure of
the document pre-judges that disparate percentages are
appropriate. While no delegation agreed this issue has been
resolved, this debate spilled into a general debate on
recommended percentages, despite the facilitator's best
efforts to maintain focus on editing changes only.


10. (U) Regarding specific positions on concentrations, the
Italians favor a .5% concentration for all three chemicals.
Norway indicated they could support a concentration as low as
.5%. The UK indicated they could go as low as .5% and is
willing to change their regulations accordingly. Germany
indicated that they have not been provided with sufficient
information in terms of proliferation risk to justify
changing their regulations below 30%. The Germans also
offered that, following demonstration of any applicable
proliferation risk, any consideration of low concentrations
should be based on a decision of whom to capture in regards
to the risk posed. Specifically, as presented by the UK
during the last round of consultations, the Germans noted
that TFE has a production concentration of PFIB as roughly
.01% and HFP has a production concentration of roughly 3-4%.


11. (U) Germany argued that .01% is clearly not on the
table for consideration because of the "extremely low
concentration" and that .5% appears overkill to capture HFP
PFIB production, where production occurs at a higher
concentration. Germany also noted that other process
formulations for TFE and HFP production yield significantly
higher concentrations of PFIB during normal operations. For
these reasons, Germany argues that the discussion should be
what percentage, if a proliferation risk for PFIB is
identified, should be set which is well above the .5% level
currently being discussed.


12. (U) On the subject of concentrations, Del reiterated
the United States regulatory concentration level remains at
30% and that we would need to see compelling arguments for
the nonproliferation benefits of a threshold below that
contained in U.S. regulations before agreeing to a lower
mixture rule. Del noted that, in this regard, the UK PFIB
proliferation risk paper is still under consideration.


13. (U) Closing the discussion on the paper, the UK
facilitator agreed, upon request of the UK, Italy and India,
to strike paragraph 20 from the proposed decision document.
The facilitator indicated he intends to issue a revised text
reflecting the editorial changes offered by SP, leaving only
the issue of specific concentrations in brackets and leaving
open the question of whether or not to have one percentage or
separate percentages for the three chemicals.


14. (U) As regards to the BZ questions contained in the
guidance cable, Del delivered the questions to the Italian
delegation. The Italians indicated they would work on a
response to the questions with the Italian experts who wrote
the Italian BZ paper.

--------------
Schedule 2 Facility Agreements
--------------


15. (U) Discussions on June 16 centered upon the
facilitators' (Heinzer, Switzerland and Abe, Japan) proposed
EC-37 report language, circulated May 26, encouraging the TS
to establish criteria to reduce the number of Schedule 2
Facility Agreements. The paper is broken out into three
paragraphs, the first identifies the treaty origin of the
facility agreement requirement from Verification Annex, Part
VII, paragraphs 17 and 24, noting the common element between
the two that facility agreements are to be concluded unless
agreed between the inspected SP and the TS that one is not
needed. The second paragraph articulates the recommendation
that the TS consider carefully the need for each Schedule 2
facility agreement based on the information available through
its verification activities (declaration and inspection) and
also taking into account the opinion of the inspected SP
involved. The third paragraph notes the Council's
recognition that enactment of such criteria by the TS may
lead to a noticeable reduction in the number of facility
agreements.


16. (U) During the last EC, similar language posed by the
facilitators failed to gain consensus due to two delegations:
Iran and India. At the onset of these consultations, the
Iranians, backed by India and Pakistan, indicated they could
support the language as written, provided that the third
paragraph was dropped. As it posed no substantive
requirements or instructions to the TS, States Parties,
including Austria, UK, Switzerland, France, China, Russia,
and Japan agreed to drop the third paragraph. Del and
Denmark both noted we could show flexibility on dropping the
third paragraph, but noted that our flexibility was
contingent upon acceptance of paragraphs 1 and 2 remaining
intact. This was agreed. However, before the meeting could
be closed, the Indian delegation - predictably - offered some
"additional editorial" changes to paragraphs 1 and 2.


17. (U) In the first paragraph, the Indian delegation
requested that the references to "unless the inspected State
Party and the Technical Secretariat agree it (facility
agreement) is not needed" be struck from the document as they
appear to be quoted only from paragraph 17 and do not include
all elements of paragraph 24. They suggested this introduced
a hierarchy of paragraphs in the Convention. Del noted that
the language is the only common element appearing in both
paragraphs, is not a direct quote and is germane to the issue
being presented for adoption by the Council - namely how the
TS develops criteria it will use to reach agreement that a

SIPDIS
facility agreement is unnecessary. France echoed a similar
concern with regards to the treaty reference and the
facilitator offered to include language indicating that both
paragraphs "include" the requirement that "unless the
inspected. . ." This seemed acceptable to the delegations.


18. (U) In regards to the second paragraph, the Indian
delegation requested that the reference to the Review
Conference document and optimization efforts be deleted and
the remainder of the paragraph dealing with the operational
recommendations be moved to follow the treaty citations
contained in the first paragraph. While delegations did not
voice objections to the Indian proposal, consensus was not
reached and the facilitators agreed to issue, by the end of
the week, a revised text that indicated changes. During
follow-on discussions with the UK, Germany, France, Japan and
Switzerland, it appeared that analysis of the proposal does
not weaken the language and appears simply editorial in
nature. Del will forward text for consideration, but agrees
that, although irritating, the change does not appear to
damage the thrust of the report language, which is to provide
cover to the TS to establish criteria to reduce the number of
facility agreements. Follow-on discussions with the TS
(Runn) confirmed that the TS intends to proceed with the
understanding as articulated during the discussions and in
earlier TS papers, that criteria established will
dramatically reduce the number of facility agreements pursued.

--------------
OCPF Site Selection
--------------


19. (U) OCPF Site Selection discussions began during the
WEOG on June 16. The U.S. inquired about WEOG's current
stance towards the Swiss-U.S. proposal. Only one delegation
- Canada - voiced a strong preference for the proposal, in
principle. Two other delegations, Germany and the UK,
indicated they still do not have final comments on the
proposal, but indicated they continue to support discussions
on the subject. Other WEOG delegations did not take the
floor. After the meeting, New Zealand privately reported
that Wellington supports the proposal, as written.


20. (U) During the consultations, the facilitator (Wilke,
Netherlands) indicated he would be stepping down as
facilitator. Del understands the Dutch are pressing for his
replacement to be Johan Verboom of the Dutch delegation,
which Del supports. On substantive matters, very little
progress was made. Delegations remain cautious about
proposals to incorporate SP allocations in the selection
methodology, despite the treaty requirement, and also remain
concerned about the manner of transparency and accountability
in the allocation of TS points under the proposal. However,
China, Russia, India, South Africa, and Iran all indicated
that the current methodology is not acceptable and expressed
a desire to continue discussions on the proposed selection
methodology. India reiterated its detailed suggestions on
their continued concerns with the text: politicization of
the process by incorporation of SP allocations, equitable
geographic disposition and complexity of the proposal.


21. (U) Del (Sanders) offered a path forward that appears
well received. The proposal is, essentially, to address each
of the weighting factors individually, analyzing the pros and
cons of various options presented thus far. In this manner,
States Parties can objectively evaluate the rationale of the
Swiss-U.S. proposal. Such an approach may facilitate leading
SPs to the Swiss-U.S. methodology by analyzing "how we got
here" rather than a "here's the math" approach. Such
transparency may eliminate some of the suspicions about the
proposal likely at the root of SP hesitation to adopt the
proposal - - that the Swiss and U.S. are acting as wolves in
sheep's clothing to target the NAM. One of the strengths of
the proposal in alleviating this concern is the geographic
disposition built on proportional number of plant sites
within SPs and that the two countries presenting the
methodology will, likely, see an increase in domestic
inspections as a result of its adoption. As foreseen in the
Convention, the balance comes from both the allocation of TS
and SP points in this regard.

--------------
Declaration Handbook/Handbook on Chemicals
--------------


22. (U) During this round of discussions on the Handbook on
Chemicals, the facilitator (Ruck, Germany) focused on
finalizing EC-37 proposed report language designating a 100 g
threshold for "marking" Schedule 1 chemicals in the Handbook
on Chemicals. Having already reached consensus on marking
Schedule 2 and 3 chemicals that have been declared to the TS
by States Parties, the issue of Schedule 1 required further
clarification. Currently, in the Handbook on Chemicals,
there are several hundred Schedule 1 chemicals listed. The
overwhelming majority of these chemicals have only been
produced in laboratory settings for background data for the
OPCW's analytical database. As such, they are neither
produced, not consumed other than their one-time creation for
data generation.


23. (U) To assist States Parties in sifting through the
Handbook on Chemicals, it was agreed that "marking" those
chemicals that have been declared, by States Parties, as
having been produced, either as weapons or for non-prohibited
purposes, would serve as a useful indicator to non-technical
users of the Handbook. The marking system would consist of
an asterisk under a column heading which would read "Declared
Production above 100g Since Entry-Into-Force (EIF)". Del,
UK, Japan, Russia, Switzerland all supported the
facilitator's proposal and agreed that 100 g was the
reasonable applicable quantity threshold, given the
declaration triggers identified in paragraphs 11-12, Part VI
of the Verification Annex.


24. (U) Regarding updates to the draft Handbook currently
under development, the facilitator indicated that the new
version would include improvements in the electronic version
and a searchable chemical database, which will include
chemical structure-searching capabilities. It was also
decided that the Handbook is a TS document and does not
require formal approval of the EC for distribution. That
said, it was agreed that any further improvements or
discussions should continue in this forum, like the
discussions on marking of chemicals, to ensure States Parties
input is offered to the TS.


25. (U) Javits sends.
SOBEL