5 Global Governance in Syrian Chemical Weapons Issue

In addition to nuclear weapons, chemical and biological weapons are both WMDs. The common characteristic of WMDs is indiscriminate killing, so they are also called“indiscriminate weapons”. The lethality of these weapons is not on the same level due to the different ways to use them. The atomic bombs used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan both led to about 100,000 casualties, half of the city's population. The yield of N-bombs was 20,000 tons of TNT. Most of the N-bombs that the US and Russia possess are now 10 times more powerful than those used by the US during WWII. In the case of the H-bomb, the explosion yield is at least megatons of TNT. However, when it comes to chemical and biological weapons (CBW), only in some extreme conditions can there be a similar effect. In most cases, the casualties will be one hundredth or even one thousandth of those caused by Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, just as shown in Syria on August 21, 2013. Only by being used for a long time, can CBW be comparable to the usage of mini-nukes.

Despite the fact that the Chemical Weapons Convention,Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty have been widely accepted by the international community; any sovereign state has the right to refuse to join them or to approve them. This is because the international community is still in an anarchic situation. No treaty has the authority to force sovereign states to sign. Even a sovereign state can choose not to be admitted to the UN. Therefore, the above three treaties and Biological Weapons Convention have not yet been accepted by all the states in the world.Syria did not accede to the Chemical Weapons Convention until a serious use of chemical weapons in Ghouta in Damascus Suburban area on Aug. 21st, 2013. This is actually a game between sovereign states and the international security governance.

However, it does not mean that a state is justified for not observing the international law just because it has not acceded to the international conventions. Whether a sovereign state should abide by the international law is determined by the UN rather than the state itself. If states are concerned with the international peace and security, stipulated in the UN Charter, they should stand by the UN's decisions, whether they are member states or not.

Because of this, the Saddam Hussein regime was prohibited by the UN from having chemical, nuclear weapons, and missiles whose firing range is beyond 150 kilometers. In the past ten years, the UNSC has repeatedly demanded that North Korea should stop its nuclear development, nuclear tests, missile experiments and satellite launching based on the ballistic missile technology. In addition, the UN urged Iran to stop uranium enrichment. All of these have already interfered with the defense, economic, scientific, and technological sovereignty of North Korea and Iran. However, taking into consideration world peace and security, the UNSC has explicitly banned North Korea and Iran from exercising their rights as sovereign states.

Although the international community has long fought for the ban of chemical weapons, they are frequently used as “nuclear weapons for the poor”. In the Iran-Iraq War from 1980 to 1988, Iraq used chemical weapons and received the tacit approval from some western states since Iran was considered a rival of the western world. In 1988, the Iraqi government even used chemical weapons to suppress the Kurdish independence movement. The chemical weapons event that happened in Syria in August 21, 2013 was the most serious one. As long as the user is identified, the international community must impose severe sanctions on the culprit through the UNSC. It is absolutely a violation of the international law that some Western states like the US tried to take unilateral actions against Syria. Under the circumstances, if the US and other Western states used force against Syria, they definitely breached international law.

Nevertheless, since the US power has far exceeded those of other states, when it cannot be authorized by the UN as it wishes, the US is liable to take unilateral actions. In 2003, without the authorization of the UN and concrete evidence that Iraq posed a threat to the US, the US launched a preemptive attack on Iraq, a sovereign state. The military action of the US not only broke the international law but also severely undermined the national security of both Iraq and the United States. Under the circumstances, President Obama who held an opposite attitude towards the Iraqi War won the Nobel Prize for Pease due to his advocacy role in the US withdrawal from Iraq and his promotion of a non-nuclear world. All the above factors made it necessary for the US to punish the Syrian government for using chemical weapons after getting approval from the UNSC on the basis of valid evidence. Any unilateral action by the US would divide the international community as seen before.

Since the US alone could not achieve the goals mentioned above, Russia advanced a compromise proposal: the US gives up taking military actions against Syria and Syria accedes to the Chemical Weapons Convention and renounces all of its chemical weapons. This is undoubtedly a constructive proposal that allows all parties to reach an agreement. For the US, the purpose of taking military actions against Syria was not to overthrow the Assad government, but to punish the Syrian government for its use of chemical weapons and to prevent such things from happening again. For Syria, the chemical weapons it possessed evidently could not deter the United States' military actions, which indicates a sharp decline in the effectiveness of the deterrence. It is absolutely irrational for the Syrian leadership to choose to be attacked by the US and have their national security and domestic authority damaged due to the chemical weapons they had. In this case, the compromised proposal advocated by Russia took into consideration the maximum interests of both Syria and the US and thus successfully solved the problem.

The Syrian chemical weapon event deprived many innocents of their lives and made it the most serious WMD incident in the 21stcentury. Those who used chemical weapons should be strongly condemned and punished. However, it is easy for the UN to conclude that chemical weapons have been used, but difficult to identify who has used them, just like the sinking of South Korea's Cheonan warship in 2010. According to the investigation, the warship sank because of an explosion rather than an implosion and it is extremely difficult to explore the reason for the explosion. What's more, the investigation was not conducted by the UN experts at all. Yet, the effective approach to solving Syria's chemical weapons problem is an example that shows how important diplomatic and political negotiations can be in managing crises. The later stage of the crisis witnessed the active participation of relevant parties. China insisted on using political means to solve the problem and mediated between the Syrian government and the opposition forces. The US President Obama refused to launch a war against the Syrian government. The UN conducted an active investigation and urged the US to wait for the report before it took actions. Russia's proposal on the Syrian abandonment of chemical weapons left no room for the United States' military actions. Furthermore, Russia accepted the possible UN-authorized military actions against Syria in the future. With the multi-party efforts, effective cooperation has been achieved in solving this problem, which becomes a classic case in the global governance in non-proliferation.