The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) is an international disarmament treaty that seeks to eliminate chemical weapons in a verifiable manner, and to prevent their re-emergence.
A number of chemicals produced or used for normal industrial, medical or research purposes can also be used to produce chemical weapons, while some chemical sites have production equipment that could be misused to produce chemical weapons. For this reason, the CWC requires that certain industrial and research activities are subject to verification measures to provide assurance to the international community that chemicals are not being diverted for chemical weapons purposes.
Australia implements its CWC obligations primarily through the Chemical Weapons (Prohibition) Act 1994 and the Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations 1997.
ASNO has been designated Australia's National Authority under the CWC Act and is responsible for ensuring Australia meets its treaty commitments while at the same time ensuring that the rights of relevant areas of the chemical industry are protected. This includes regulating approximately Australian facilities ranging from chemical industries to defence laboratories; regulating the import of CWC relevant chemicals; conducting domestic compliance inspections and visits; preparing national declarations based on information collected from regulated entities; and managing inspections in Australia by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), in accordance with the provisions of the CWC.
- The Chemical Weapons Convention: A guide for Australian industry producing, using or trading chemicals (2014) [PDF 2.20 MB]
- The Chemical Weapons Convention: Inspection information for producers and users of chemicals (2014) [PDF 646 KB]
- The Chemical Weapons Convention: Information for importers and exporters of chemicals (2014) [PDF 4.11 MB]