LI Alliance Hails Nobel Peace Prize Winner: The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons
The LI Alliance for Peaceful Alternatives applauds Nobel Committee’s choice to award the 2013 Peace Prize to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
The 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention prohibits the production and storage of these weapons and came in force in 1997, making them illegal under international law.
Since then, the Organization for the Prohibition has carried out implementation of the treaty through inspections and destruction of more than 80% of the international stockpile of chemical weapon. 189 states have acceded to the convention.
The Nobel Peace Prize and recent OPCW efforts in Syria demonstrate the effectiveness of multilateralism as a better and more effective means of preventing the spread of these weapons of mass destruction. Moreover, it highlights the importance of international law in resolving and preventing conflicts.
The choice of OPCW also challenges states who are not members to sign on and to the United States and Russia to accelerate their work to eliminate their own stockpiles.
The OPCW inspectors in Syria also provide a glimpse of how the disarmament process works – and this focus emphasizes that while expensive and dangerous, disarmament can be accomplished through universal adherence and compliance with international law.
The work of the OPCW has been a reality check that disarmament works. And in the case of Syria illustrates that diplomacy, multilateralism and the rule of law are better alternatives to the use of military force.
Margaret Melkonian, Executive Director
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