[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 49 (Wednesday, April 23, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3482-S3483]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                   Condition 32 on Articles X and XI

  The fourth condition is condition 32, which requires the President, 
prior to depositing the instrument of ratification, to certify that the 
parties to the convention have agreed to strike article X from the 
convention, and amend article XI.

  This provision is a killer, plain and simple, and will prevent the 
United States from joining the convention. The President cannot make 
such a certification prior to April 29, and probably never will be able 
to do so, because the convention permits a single State party to veto 
such amendments. This provision must be struck.
  Proponents of this condition contend that the convention requires the 
United States and other parties to share critical technology that will 
assist countries of concern to develop offensive chemical weapons 
programs. But this is just not so.
  Article X focuses, in large measure, on assistance and protection for 
countries attacked, or facing attack, by chemical weapons. Opponents of 
the CWC have contended that paragraphs 3 and 7 require the United 
States to provide defensive technology to other members. But the 
administration has made clear that paragraph 3 leaves it up to the 
United States to decide precisely what, if anything, it will exchange, 
and has committed that the only assistance it will provide under 
paragraph 7 is medical antidotes and treatment. This latter promise is 
locked in--by condition 15 of Senate Executive Resolution 75.
  Only countries that have joined the CWC and renounced chemical 
weapons can request assistance under article X and only then if they 
are threatened or attacked with chemical weapons.
  Thus, article X is intended to encourage states to do what the United 
States

[[Page S3483]]

wants them to do: join the CWC and eliminate their chemical weapons 
program.
  The President has committed in resolution of ratification condition 
No. 15 that the United States will only give medical help to certain 
countries or concern, under this article. The United States will not be 
giving them our best gas masks or any other chemical weapons defense 
technology.
  With regard to other states, the United States will use every 
instrument of U.S. diplomacy and leverage to make sure transfers do not 
occur that could undermine U.S. national security interests. As 
Secretary Cohen said Sunday, we will be better able to do this if we 
are inside the treaty rather than out.
  U.S. absence from the treaty will do nothing to keep another state 
from giving Iran and Cuba gas masks.
  Article XI addresses the exchange of scientific and technical 
information. Opponents of the CWC contend that this article also 
requires the sharing of technology, and will result in the erosion of 
export controls not only in U.S. law, but also among nations of the 
Australia Group, an informal alliance of potential supplier countries. 
This is simply not so. The administration, and the other Australia 
Group nations, have clearly stated their commitment to retain the 
current level of export controls. And condition 7 binds the 
administration to this promise. It requires the President to certify 
that ``nothing in the convention obligates the United States to accept 
any modification of its national export controls,'' and, among other 
things, to certify annually that the Australia Group is maintaining 
controls that are equal to, or exceed, the controls in place today.
  Regarding article XI, the critics further claim that a treaty 
expressly devoted to eliminating chemical weapons somehow would force 
its parties to facilitate the spread of chemical weapons. This 
interpretation is totally at odds with the plain language of the 
treaty.
  To repeat, in order to reinforce the treaty's constraints, the 
President has committed in an agreed condition on the resolution of 
ratification to obtain assurances from our Australia Group partners 
that article XI is fully consistent with maintaining strict export 
controls on dangerous chemicals. This condition also requires an annual 
certification that Australia Group members continue to maintain equally 
effective or more comprehensive controls over chemical weapons related 
materials and that the Australia Group remains a viable mechanism for 
limiting the spread of chemical and biological weapons related material 
and technology.
  The critics concern about dangerous exchanges under article XI misses 
the main point, which is that any such exchanges can take place now 
without the CWC. With the CWC, the countries undertaking exchanges are 
legally bound by the fundamental obligation of the treaty to renounce 
chemical weapons.
  The Chemical Weapons Convention will mean not only that all relevant 
trade is subject to closer scrutiny, especially with countries whose 
compliance may be in doubt, but it will also provide the legal basis as 
well as the verification and compliance measures to redress those 
concerns.
  As Ron Lehman recently stated in testimony before the Senate Foreign 
Relations Committee, ``we made it very clear throughout the 
negotiations that all of this was subject to article I, which is the 
fundamental obligations not to assist, but the most important, telling 
factoid in support of the U.S. interpretation is the fact that after 
the convention was done so many of the usual list of suspects were so 
unhappy that they did not get what they wanted in these provisions.''
  Renegotiation is not a realistic approach, as Brent Scowcroft 
recently testified. ``Starting over is pure fantasy. If we reject this 
treaty, we will incur the bitterness of all of our friends and allies 
who followed us for 10 years in putting this together. The idea that we 
can lead out again down a different path I think is just not in the 
cards. We have got to deal with the situation we face now, not an ideal 
one out in the future.''