Verification Diplomacy and the Chemical Weapons Convention in the Hybrid Warfare Era

Abstract

The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) has been described as the "gold standard" of multilateral disarmament because of its success in ensuring destruction of 99% of the world's declared stockpiles and for its verification regime, which is non-discriminatory. The modern advent of hybrid war (deniable military intervention by means of proxy operations, targeted covert poisonings and the strategic weaponization of disinformation) has brought the Convention to an unprecedented test of its architectural presumptions of the 20th century. This paper examines the development of the notion of “Verification Diplomacy” and the pivotal juncture at which forensic science and high-stakes geopolitical negotiations intersect. Through the lens of ‘weaponization of sovereignty', ‘procedural lawfare' and ‘attribution authority gap' revealed in the conflict in Syria and the employment of fourth-generation nerve agents, this study uncovers a conflictual tension between the cooperative nature of the CWC's history and the adversarial character of the current ‘gray zone' conflicts. In order to help sustain the chemical weapons taboo, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) needs to shift from being a reactive monitoring organization to a proactive forensic investigator, the research said. The paper concludes that the survival of the CWC relies on a thorough structural change that would focus on forensic purity instead of political convenience, and ensure the treaty is a binding international rule in a more polarized world and a more technologically asymmetric international order.