{"id":2308,"date":"2013-10-12T08:27:43","date_gmt":"2013-10-12T14:27:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/?p=2308"},"modified":"2013-10-12T08:27:43","modified_gmt":"2013-10-12T14:27:43","slug":"chemical-weapons-watchdog-wins-nobel-peace-prize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/chemical-weapons-watchdog-wins-nobel-peace-prize\/","title":{"rendered":"Chemical Weapons Watchdog Wins Nobel Peace Prize"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Alan Cowell, New York Times
\nclick here for original article<\/a><\/p>\n

LONDON \u2014 Urging the destruction of an \u201centire category\u201d of unconventional weapons, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded its 2013 Peace Prize on Friday to a modest and little-known United Nations-backed organization that has drawn sudden attention with a mission to ensure that Syria\u2019s stocks of chemical arms are eradicated.<\/p>\n

\n

The award, to the\u00a0Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons<\/a>, surprised some Nobel watchers partly because of the unprecedented nature of its current task: overseeing the destruction of a previously secret chemical weapons program quickly amid a raging civil war.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were aware that our work silently but surely was contributing to peace in the world,\u201d Ahmet Uzumcu, the director general of the organization, told reporters at its headquarters in The Hague after the award was announced. \u201cThe last few weeks have brought this to the fore. The entire international community has been made aware of our work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among diplomats, the prize was seen as the high point of a startling rise to prominence for an organization that had worked in relative obscurity. Some Syrians, however, took strong exception to the idea of lauding chemical weapons watchdogs when the bulk of the more than 100,000 deaths in Syria\u2019s 31-month-old conflict have been caused by conventional weapons, like airstrikes and artillery and rocket fire.<\/p>\n

Despite the urgency and danger of its task, the organization had not been seen as a likely winner. In the days leading up to the award, much attention was focused on individual candidates, including Malala Yousafzai, the 16-year-old Pakistani who risked her life to campaign for girls\u2019 education and would have been the youngest recipient ever.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0its citation<\/a>, the committee said the organization and the treaty under which it was founded in 1997 \u201chave defined the use of chemical weapons as a taboo under international law.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRecent events in Syria, where chemical weapons have again been put to use, have underlined the need to enhance the efforts to do away with such weapons,\u201d the citation said.<\/p>\n

It was the second successive year that the panel, based in Oslo, had chosen an organization. The\u00a0European Union won the 2012 prize<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Inspectors from the 189-member organization\u00a0began arriving in Syria early this month<\/a>after a chemical weapons attack killed hundreds of people on the outskirts of Damascus, the Syrian capital, on Aug. 21. Under a deal brokered by Russia and the United States, Syria agreed to join the treaty banning chemical weapons and become the 190th member of the organization.<\/p>\n

The attack initially drew an American threat of military reprisal before Moscow and Washington reached a compromise arrangement to destroy Syria\u2019s chemical weapons stocks under international supervision.<\/p>\n

Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the former Soviet leader and the winner of the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize, hailed the award. \u201cO.P.C.W. has worked tirelessly to rid the world of chemical weapons, and the organization is a deserved winner of the Nobel Peace Prize,\u201d Mr. Gorbachev said in\u00a0a statement<\/a>\u00a0issued by Green Cross International, an advocacy group based in Geneva that he founded, which has collaborated closely with the chemical weapons watchdog.<\/p>\n

Angela Kane, the top United Nations disarmament official, who worked with the watchdog organization to lead an investigation into the Aug. 21 attack and other suspected uses of chemical weapons in Syria, said in a statement, \u201cIf he were alive today, Alfred Nobel would be gratified indeed that his committee has once again recognized disarmament for its great benefit to humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thorbjorn Jagland, the former Norwegian prime minister who is chairman of the Nobel committee, said chemical weapons had been used by Hitler\u2019s armies in their campaign of mass extermination and on many other occasions by states and terrorists. Mr. Jagland denied suggestions that the award represented a European-centered shift after last year\u2019s award to the European Union. \u201cIt\u2019s global,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The organization\u2019s mission is to act as a watchdog in carrying out the Chemical Weapons Convention, which came into force in 1997 with four aims: to destroy all chemical weapons under international verification, to prevent the creation of new chemical weapons, to help countries protect themselves against chemical attack, and to foster international cooperation in the peaceful use of chemistry.<\/p>\n

Since its creation, the organization has sent experts to carry out 5,000 inspections in 86 countries, working discreetly, almost shunning publicity, with the small number of signatory countries that acknowledge possessing chemical weapons. By far the biggest of these are Russia and the United States. Four countries besides Syria have not yet signed or ratified the treaty: Angola, Egypt, North Korea and South Sudan. Israel and Myanmar have signed the treaty, but their governments have not ratified it.<\/p>\n

The Syria operation is unparalleled in its urgency and its hazards. The United Nations Security Council has set extremely tight deadlines for the mission, calling for the destruction of Syria\u2019s arsenal of dangerous toxic substances by mid-2014.<\/p>\n

\n

Mr. Jagland said the award would remind nations still holding major stocks of chemical weapons to destroy them, \u201cespecially because they are demanding that others do the same, like Syria.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe now have the opportunity to get rid of an entire category of weapons of mass destruction,\u201d he said. \u201cThat would be a great event in history if we could achieve that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The official Syrian state news agency offered no immediate comment on the award. But the reaction from many Syrians and others following the Syrian conflict was anger because they consider the chemical weapons issue a sideshow. Antigovernment protesters in Kafranbel, a town in northern Syria, created a drawing of bombs falling, smoke rising and corpses lying in blood, surrounding a blue-helmeted United Nations worker triumphantly holding a wrench over a dismantled chemical warhead.<\/p>\n

In Moscow, Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov of Russia, the Syrian government\u2019s main backer, insisted that the transfer of Syria\u2019s chemical weapons to international control take place according to schedule. He also suggested that adversaries of Syria\u2019s president, Bashar al-Assad, both at home and abroad, might try to subvert the initiative.<\/p>\n

Ryan C. Crocker, a former United States ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, now dean and executive professor at the\u00a0George Bush School of Government and Public Service<\/a>\u00a0at Texas A&M University, said he was puzzled by the award.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe O.P.C.W., wherever it goes in the chemical weapons effort in Syria, is not going to bring peace to Syria because chemical weapons are simply not a major factor in Assad\u2019s ability to wage war, which in my view is why he\u2019s willing to cooperate,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cGetting rid of chemical weapons anywhere is a good thing,\u201d he said, \u201cbut to make this worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize, I just don\u2019t get it.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
\n

Reporting was contributed by Nick Cumming-Bruce from Geneva; Anne Barnard from Beirut, Lebanon; Andrew Roth from Moscow; Andrew Higgins from Brussels; and Rick Gladstone from New York.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:<\/em><\/p>\n

Correction: October 11, 2013<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

An earlier version of this article misstated the date that the Nobel Peace Prize will be presented. The award will be presented on Dec. 10, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel. It was not presented on Friday. It also misstated the given name of the director general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. He is Ahmet Uzumcu, not Ahemt.<\/em><\/p>\n

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:<\/em><\/p>\n

Correction: October 11, 2013<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

An earlier version of this article misstated the name of the school where Ryan C. Crocker, a former United States ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, is now dean and executive professor. It is the George Bush School of Government & Public Service, not the George Bush School of Public Policy. The article also misidentified the school\u2019s parent university. It is Texas A&M University, not the University of Texas.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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