Chemical Weapons Convention

Malaysia signed the Chemical Weapon Convention (CWC) on 13th January 1993 and ratified the Convention on 20th April 2000. The Convention entered into force in Malaysia on 20th May 2000. On June 16^th, 2005, Chemical Weapons Convention Act was gazetted to implement the Convention in Malaysia.

According to the CWC Act 2005, Department has been appointed as one of the agencies in the National Authority Chemical Weapons Convention (NACWC) which is led by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. For further details of NACWC and its roles please go to https://www.kln.gov.my/cwc/

Members of NACWC

Members of National Authorities are as below:

Ministry of Foreign Affairs as the lead agency
Ministry of Defence
Ministry of Home Affairs of Malaysia
Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI)
Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation (MOSTI)
Ministry Of Natural Resources, Environment and Climate Change
Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) (Ministry of Human Resource)
Pesticide Board
Department of Chemistry
Department of Environment
Royal Malaysian Police
Royal Malaysian Customs
Pharmaceutical Services Department (Ministry of Health)
Science and Technology Research Institute for Defence (STRIDE)

Department participation

As an appointed agency, Department plays important roles and responsibilities in enforcing and implementing the Convention in Malaysia namely:

Act as the Advance Team for International State Party Inspection.
Act as the Escort Team for International State Party Inspection.
DOSH Officers being appointed as the National Inspectors.
Involvement in CWC National Inspection/ Verification.
Act as the Chair-agency for the implementation of Article XI of the Convention.
As a member of the National Scientific Advisory Board advising the Chairman of NACWC Malaysia.
Participate in programs, meetings, courses, and workshops organized by NACWC, OPCW, and other related agencies.
Provide CWC scheduled chemicals data at industries from the Department repository based on ~2700 scheduled chemicals installed in the system to the NACWC for verification purposes.

Besides, Department is also responsible for dealing with issues related to chemical safety and security management (CSSM) which is one of the initiatives under Article XI of the CWC.

Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)

OPCW is the implementing body of the Convention and the headquarters is located in the Hague, Netherlands. The OPCW’s mission is to implement the provisions of the Chemical Weapons Convention and to achieve the vision of a world free of chemical weapons and the threat of their use, and in which chemistry is used for peace, progress, and prosperity. This is including the prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of chemical weapons and their Destruction. As of today, OPCW has 193 Member States, that are working together to achieve a world free of chemical weapons. For further details on OPCW please go to https://www.opcw.org/

The OPCW Member States share the collective goal of preventing chemistry from ever again being used for warfare, thereby strengthening international security. To this end, the Convention contains four key provisions:

destroying all existing chemical weapons under international verification by the OPCW.
monitoring the chemical industry to prevent new weapons from re-emerging.
providing assistance and protection to States Parties against chemical threats, and
fostering international cooperation to strengthen the implementation of the Convention and promote the peaceful use of chemistry.

Schedule Chemicals

To implement the CWC, there are identified chemicals for the application of verification measures according to the provisions of the CWC.

schedule chemicals

Declaration

One of the most important obligations in the Convention that Malaysia needs to fulfil is to submit the Annual Declarations. Thus, companies involved in activities above the declarations threshold limit related to Scheduled Chemicals and Unscheduled Discrete Organic Chemicals (DOC) must submit their annual declaration to the National Authority. The submission of the annual declaration is mandatory under the CWC Act 2005. Hence, the failure to submit the annual declarations is an offence under the law.