Dynamics of norm contestation in the Chemical Weapons Convention: The case of ‘non-lethal agents’

Abstract

In this article, we use an adapted version of Wayne Sandholtz’s cycle of normative change to examine the dynamics of contestation of norms against incapacitating chemical agents and riot control agents, often imprecisely grouped together under the term ‘non-lethal chemical weapons’. We draw on a concept-driven analysis of statements and in-depth interviews with individual stakeholders to track the gradual development of the issue towards norm change within the Chemical Weapons Convention. Our findings highlight several key factors conducive to normative change, particularly the role of the Dubrovka incident as the ‘deviant event’, discursive decoupling of the two classes of chemicals, and new framing and ‘rebranding’ of incapacitating chemical agents as ‘CNS-acting chemicals’. At the same time, we also examine factors that significantly slowed down attempts by norm entrepreneurs to attract attention to the issue, such as the saliency of the use of chemical weapons in Syria, which effectively sidelined the problem of ‘non-lethal’ agents in the overall debate.

Keywords

chemical weapons contestation framing non-lethal agents norms

In 2013, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the annual Peace Prize to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the implementing body of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and the associated international regime. Since its establishment in 1997, the OPCW has been largely successful in dismantling much of the world’s arsenal of harmful chemicals intended for warfare. The organization has been regularly monitoring the peaceful applications of chemistry, verifying the state parties’ compliance with the CWC regime norms, and providing expertise in individual cases of rule violations.

The normative structure of the CWC regime is mainly built on the fundamental norms prohibiting chemical weapons warfare (Bentley, 2014; Price, 1997). However, the more specific anti-chemical norms and rules have not remained completely static since the regime’s inception. The partial flexibility of the Convention allows it to continuously adapt to new advancements in science and technology, as well as to intra-regime normative developments (cf. Kelle, 2004; Müller et al., 2013).

In this article, we examine the patterns of contestation of the CWC norms against incapacitating chemical agents (ICAs) and riot control agents (RCAs), often imprecisely grouped together under the term ‘non-lethal agents’. In contrast to chemicals intended for warfare, ‘non-lethal agents’ have been mostly considered to belong to the domain of law enforcement unregulated by the CWC. However, tragic events such as the 2002 Dubrovka hostage incident, where the use of such ‘non-lethal’ agents led to over one hundred civilian fatalities, have contributed to a growing sentiment among certain state parties and non-governmental organizations alike that these chemicals pose ‘real and growing dangers to human security’ (Crowley, 2016: 2) and that the CWC norms should change to regulate their possession and use by the regime members.

Although international relations (IR) scholars have not shied away from studying the role of chemical weapons in world politics, the problem of ‘non-lethal chemical weapons’ has so far received only scant attention in the field. The existing literature has been primarily concerned with the fundamental norm against chemical weapons use, the so-called ‘chemical weapons taboo’ (Bentley, 2014, 2015; Jefferson, 2014; Price, 1995, 1997; Price and Tannenwald, 1996), with recent focus on the repeated violations of this norm in the Syrian civil war (Bentley, 2016; Geis and Schlag, 2017). Studies of contemporary normative dynamics within the CWC mostly sideline the ‘non-lethal agents’ issue and rather focus on more resonant intra-regime conflicts concerning verification and disarmament (Enia and Fields, 2014; Müller et al., 2013). Occasionally, the IR norm literature briefly mentions the issue of ‘non-lethal agents’ in the context of bio-chemical weapons development and the status of these weapons under the chemical and biological conventions (Rosert et al., 2013: 117; see also Dando, 2011; Fidler, 2005; Pearson et al., 2007).

Our approach to ‘non-lethal agents’ in the CWC is theoretically grounded in discursive institutionalism (Schmidt, 2008, 2010) and the recent IR literature on norm contestation and change (Krook and True, 2012; Müller and Wunderlich, 2018; Smetana and Onderco, 2018; Wiener, 2004, 2009). In particular, we approach the problem of ‘non-lethal agents’ from the perspective of normative change theory, introduced by Sandholtz (2008) and further elaborated by O’Mahoney (2013). Using their conceptual toolkit, we examine the discursive shifts and patterns of gradual norm change concerning ‘non-lethal agents’ in the CWC between 2000 and 2017. To this end, we primarily draw on a concept-driven analysis of individual statements and documents produced within the OPCW and in-depth interviews with OPCW representatives and diplomats.

Beyond the original empirical contribution in a largely uncharted area of international politics, this article also provides some interesting theoretical observations of the IR literature on norm contestation and change. In particular, our study of the discursive process highlights the importance of discursive framing that can dramatically impact the contestation dynamics. In the CWC case, our findings demonstrate that the ability of actors to re-frame and narrow the scope of the ‘non-lethal agents’ debate by decoupling the problem of ICAs from RCAs has managed to increase international support for formal norm change.

The article proceeds as follows. First, we discuss the theoretical underpinnings of our research, which is grounded in the discursive institutionalism and the IR norm contestation literature. Second, we elaborate on Sandholtz’s conceptual model of normative change and its latest modifications. Third, we provide an overview of the normative structure of the CWC and the respective position of ‘non-lethal agents’. Fourth, we apply the aforementioned model of normative change and examine the patterns of normative contestation of ‘non-lethal agents’ between 2000 and 2017. Fifth, we identify the key factors behind the respective norm dynamics within the CWC. We conclude by summarizing our findings.

Discursive approach to norm contestation and change

The study of norms in world politics is one of the most prominent topics in social constructivist strands of IR. The first generation of norm research arose within the context of the intra-disciplinary debate with rationalist theories, and primarily aimed at demonstrating the importance of ideational factors in world affairs (Wendt, 1999: 1; cf. Legro, 2000; Reus-Smit, 1999). Subsequent generations, however, eventually began to be more preoccupied with questions concerning international norm dynamics: how norms emerge, develop, and spread in the international system (see, for example, Acharya, 2004; Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998; Risse and Sikkink, 1999).¹

The more recent streams of IR constructivist scholarship have gradually moved away from the understanding of norms as ‘things’ to conceptualizing norms as ‘processes’ (Krook and True, 2012: 104–105). As part of these processes, international norms are subject to constant development through discursive interventions by relevant actors that challenge and temporarily fix the actual meanings of these norms (see, for example, Krook and True, 2012: 105, 108; Müller, 2013: 11; Sandholtz, 2008; Smetana and Onderco, 2018; Van Kersbergen and Verbeek, 2007). In other words, the international norm dynamics are closely tied to the processes of norm contestation through discursive objection, deliberation, and affirmation that ‘reflect a specific (re-)enacting of the normative structure of meaning-in-use’ and are therefore ‘constitutive towards norm change’ (Wiener and Puetter, 2009: 10; see also Wiener, 2014).

These streams of IR literature are largely compatible with the broader range of approaches that can be subsumed under the label ‘discursive institutionalism’. They generally share the dynamic view of continuity and change in social structures that take place as a result of discursive interactions (Schmidt, 2008, 2010, 2011). For discursive institutionalists, ideas and discourse are critical for our understanding of changes that take place in the social world. To this end, discursive institutionalist scholarship aims at producing contextual analyses of discursive interactions and focuses on both the substantive content of ideas and the rhetorical and framing strategies that help to spread these ideas within the respective discursive communities (Schmidt, 2017: 249–250).

In the international realm (and elsewhere), these discursive interactions are frequently triggered by tensions between norms and the respective behaviour of actors. Due to the contingent and often ambiguous nature of norms, the actions of individual actors are frequently followed by disputes concerning the application of the given norm in practice. In consequence, ‘the outcome of such arguments is always to modify the norms under dispute, making them stronger or weaker, more specific (or less), broader or narrower’ (Sandholtz, 2008: 103–104; see also Sandholtz and Stiles, 2009). Whereas these normative conflicts can sometimes lead to the establishment of competing normative perspectives in international society, they also represent a unifying (and norm-bolstering) opportunity when it comes to normative development; in fact, as Wiener (2017: 11) concludes, ‘validity claims obtain legitimacy precisely through public dissensus’. With respect to norms in world politics, international institutions frequently play a key role in both the formal and social (re-)validation of norms and their meanings (Wiener and Puetter, 2009: 7).

Cycle of normative change

In accordance with the aforementioned logic of discursive approaches to norm contestation and dynamics, Sandholtz (2008) developed a cyclic model of international norm change.² The model analytically unpacks an interactive dynamic involving rule structure (both legal and ‘soft’ norms valid in the given environment), actions (behaviour of actors relevant in the given normative structure), arguments (with respect to the applicability and validity of the norm in the given context), and rule change (change in the content, strength, clarity, or specificity of the norm). The cyclical dynamics take place within the rule structures that guide actors’ choices, in the form of acts that trigger normative disputes, followed by argumentation based on precedents that modify the norms in question, resulting in the modified rule structure (see Figure 1).

Figure 1.

The cycle of normative change (Sandholtz, 2008).

O’Mahoney (2013) then revised Sandholtz’s cyclic model by elaborating on distinct types of tensions that can lead to normative conflicts and eventually to norm change. In institutions and complex rule systems, norm dynamics can be triggered by rule ambiguity (‘when an existing rule covers a set of acts or situations and does not distinguish between subsets of those acts or situations’), rule inconsistency (‘when two rules conflict with each other’), or rule inadequacy (‘the ineffectiveness of sanctions, which may include the absence of a sanction’) (O’Mahoney, 2013: 841–842). In accordance with theoretical expectations of discursive institutionalism, all of the three mechanisms outlined above carry the potential to trigger a normative dispute, even in the absence of power shifts or introduction of new actors to the system.

It is also important to note that neither the structure nor the agency is necessarily prioritized in these cyclical models. In other words, these models presuppose that norms are simultaneously structures that constrain actors in what they can say and do in a given institutional setting, while, at the same time, they can also be changed through discourse, that is, through the way the very same actors speak and act. This dynamic view of the agent-structure relationship is at the core of theorizing about institutional change within the discursive institutionalist approaches, arguably providing us with a more complex understanding of the norm dynamics processes than approaches that overemphasize either the agency or structure side of the story (see Schmidt, 2008: 313–317).

In this article, we propose further elaboration of Sandholtz’s model in the ‘arguments’ section of the cycle. While arguments are certainly shaped by relevant precedents, they are also shaped by distinct framing strategies employed by individual actors. According to Barnett (1999: 25), ‘actors deploy frames to help fix meanings, organize experience [and] propose solutions to ongoing problems’. As noted by Payne (2001: 39), framing and frames are ‘basic building blocks for the construction of broadly resonant norms [and] a central element of successful persuasion’. As such, norm entrepreneurs can succeed only if they manage to ‘frame normative ideas in such a way that they resonate with relevant audiences’ (Payne 2001: 39).

The simple question of why some ideas succeed and others fail is complicated by the fact, that – as we demonstrate in the CWC case – an idea can seemingly get sidelined, only to be revived and to gain traction later in just a slightly modified form. The reason for this development can be the different framing of the particular issue. An idea can be successful without a carefully crafted frame but when framed in an unsuitable way, the likelihood of success decreases dramatically. As such, not only the content of a particular idea is important; the way it is presented, linked to existing normative structures, and situated in the wider social context is equally decisive for its fate. A functional strategy seems to be to embed the proposed practice within already accepted norms and build a credible association with them – either by adopting the same criteria for the new idea or reshaping those normative criteria under which the new idea should be evoked (Petersohn, 2014). Finally, who is the one (re-)framing the idea also counts; as noted by Sandholtz (2008: 109), in international politics, the persuasiveness of normative claims does not only stem from their compatibility with (already accepted) other norms and precedents, but also the extent to which these claims gain support from powerful states.

In Figure 2, we show the adapted depiction of cycles of norm change by incorporating both the specification of possible rule-tensions and the framing dimension of normative persuasion.

Figure 2.

Adapted cycle of normative change.

Normative structure of the CWC and the issue of ‘non-lethal agents’

The motivation for international regulation of chemical weapons largely stems from the horrific experiences of World War I, even though international agreements prohibiting poisonous substances in warfare appeared as early as 1675. Following the large-scale use of chemical weapons in World War I, the 1925 Geneva Protocol formally established the norm of the non-use of chemical weapons (Bajgar et al., 2009). A comprehensive CWC was then concluded in 1992 and opened for signature a year later, coming into force in 1997. The CWC does not only cover chemical non-use, but also outlaws the possession and proliferation of chemical weapons and provides specific guidelines for the destruction of existing stockpiles. Only four states have not yet joined the 193 parties to the CWC, namely North Korea, South Sudan, Egypt, and Israel.

As mentioned above, the institutional setting of the chemical weapons regime revolves around the Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). Its principal organ is the annual Conference of States Parties and the Review Conferences with the objective of periodically assessing the implementation of the Convention (Enia and Fields, 2014). The Conference votes by two-thirds majority on matters of substance and by simple majority on procedural matters. States parties also request investigations into possible CWC violations. Responsible to the Conference is the Executive Council (with 41 seats where countries rotate periodically based on five regional groupings) that, jointly with the Conference, appoints the Director-General of the Technical Secretariat. He or she in turn appoints and oversees the work of the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB).

In this section, we analytically dissect the main components of the normative system governing the CWC using the aforementioned Sandholtz’s conceptual toolbox. The rule structure of the chemical weapons regime primarily revolves around the normative ‘taboo’ against the use of chemical weapons (Price, 1995). The prohibition norm, central to the chemical weapons regime, ‘has gained almost universal acceptance’ (Müller et al., 2013: 51). Besides developing, producing, acquiring, stockpiling, retaining, transferring, and using chemical weapons or assisting, encouraging, or inducing anyone to engage in prohibited activities (CWC Art. I, 1), the chemical weapons regime is also built on the disarmament norm, as well as norms regulating the handling of toxic chemicals and their precursors, peaceful use of chemistry, international cooperation, and victim assistance.

The handling of specific chemical substances in the CWC largely reflects the logic of flexibility and adaptation. The CWC defines multiple types of chemical agents and three so-called ‘schedules’ that these agents are divided into. Each of these three schedules prescribes different rules for possession and peaceful uses of the specific types of chemicals (see CWC, Annex on Chemicals). However, the scope of the Convention is not constrained to these schedules but is determined by Article II (1). This article, also known as the ‘general-purpose criterion’, establishes a prohibition based on intent rather than on a limited list of toxic chemical agents (while there is no distinction between ‘lethal’ and ‘non-lethal’ chemical agents; see Pearson, 2006). As such, it allows the regime to reflect on and accommodate new developments in science, so that even still unknown, future toxic chemicals are covered by its provisions. As such, the CWC rule structure provides enough room for the contestation of the status of different chemical substances.

‘Non-lethal chemical weapons’ – ICAs and RCAs – are among those substances not listed in the three Schedules. RCAs are potent sensory irritants, sometimes informally referred to as tear gases, whereas ICAs are a class of chemicals acting on the central nervous system, generally including pharmaceutical chemicals, bioregulators, and toxins.³ Possession of the RCAs for law enforcement purposes must be declared by the state parties, whereas the status of ICAs is not formalized under the CWC, leading to claims that they might constitute a ‘slippery slope’ or a ‘creeping legitimization’ of chemical weapons (Crowley, 2016). The difficulty in defining and regulating ‘non-lethal agents’ is also largely associated with the precarious notion of an ‘intent’, the lack of a definition of ‘law enforcement’, and the problematic distinction between police and military action (Interview with the Science Policy Adviser to the OPCW, November 2017).⁴ In this regard, Dunworth (2012: 10) notes that such ambiguous cases could possibly include conduct of United Nations peace operations, rescuing hostages, controlling rioting prisoners of war, or managing civilian riots in cases where the Law of Occupation applies.⁵ As such, ‘non-lethal agents’ are often considered a ‘loophole’ in the CWC regime, allowing states to stockpile a certain amount of these chemicals.

In the aforementioned logic of the cycles of normative change, actions that would trigger disputes in the CWC are any events that bring about contestation of the existing norms due to rule ambiguity, inconsistency, or inadequacy. In the context of ‘non-lethal agents’, rule ambiguity primarily concerns unclear understanding of the law enforcement provision, whereas the fact that some of the substances barely differ from scheduled chemicals and meet the toxic chemical definition yet are admissible under the law enforcement provision shows rule inconsistency. Rule inadequacy can be demonstrated by the large differences in the national implementation among state parties and by the lack of enforceability, stemming from the fact that the CWC does not specify sanctions for potential rule violators.

Arguments within the CWC are primarily provided through the statements at the Conferences of the State Parties, Review Conferences, and other official events, statements by the OPCW bodies such as the Director-General or the SAB, as well as through less formal negotiations within the regime. Although the Director-General and the SAB cannot take decisions or thereby contribute to a formal norm change, they are crucial in providing arguments and technical expertise to the state parties.

Finally, rule change in the regime is primarily driven by state parties under the CWC that have the exclusive power to formally change existing rules and implement new ones. As one of our interviewees noted, the overall process thereby allows for a gradual rule change in the absence of sanctions – the non-binding nature of the recommendations provides state parties with a chance to alter their behaviour in a non-coercive way and establish a new ‘normative benchmark’ at the same time (Interview with the Science Policy Adviser to the OPCW, November 2017).

Contestation dynamics and the cycle of normative change

In the debate over RCAs, the initial impetus for norm contestation and subsequent norm change came from the SAB. In 2000, the SAB took the first step to revise the status of a previously non-scheduled chemical, adamsite. Adamsite had originally been produced for the purposes of chemical warfare, yet it has been used as an RCA for decades. The SAB reached the conclusion that there is no legitimate use for adamsite apart from research and that it ‘should accordingly no longer be used as an RCA, as it fails to meet today’s concerns for safety’ (OPCW, 2000: 3). In consequence, stockpiles of adamsite had been destroyed by 2008 (Radke et al., 2014), effectively marking norm change with respect to this specific chemical.

In 2002 and 2003, the SAB acknowledged that it was ‘aware of the concerns about the development of new riot control agents (RCAs) and other so-called “non-lethal” toxic chemicals’ (OPCW, 2002). This was reiterated in a note by the Director-General, who gave examples of the toxic chemicals in question: incapacitants, calmatives, vomiting agents, and the like (OPCW, 2003). During its seventh session, the SAB further stressed the need for adequate detection of the possible uses of RCAs, suggesting that laboratories employed by the OPCW (2005: 5) should be able, inter alia, to detect the ‘threat chemicals other than scheduled chemicals (such as “new agents”), of toxins other than ricin and saxitoxin, and of riot-control agents’. Furthermore, in 2004, the SAB considered including RCAs into the OPCW Central Analytical Database (OCAD) for verification purposes (OPCW, 2004), a suggestion that it repeated in the following years (OPCW, 2007, 2008a, 2016b, 2017). Finally, the SAB report evaluated a list of 59 chemicals that have been considered and used as RCAs in the past, with the result that only some 17 of them were deemed admissible for riot control purposes (OPCW, 2014).

The contestation of ICAs under the CWC has followed a slightly different dynamic – primarily because, unlike the RCAs, they are not explicitly covered by the Convention. The action that arguably triggered the normative argumentation and debates over the possible rule change was the use of ICAs (two fentanyl derivatives) by Russian special forces in the 2002 Dubrovka hostage incident that left 126 hostages out of 979 dead from gas poisoning (Pilch and Dolnik, 2003; Stone, 2018). The lethality of these chemicals was approximately 17% (Klotz et al., 2003), which is comparable to the rate of battlefield casualties caused by conventional weapons that has been found to be around 16% (Robinson, 2007). This incident resonated with multiple actors in the international community, as it clearly demonstrated the lethality of supposedly ‘non-lethal agents’ and pointed to a ‘blank spot’ in the normative structure of the CWC. At the First CWC Review Conference in 2003, the issue of ICAs was raised by a group of states led by Switzerland, only to be disputed and blocked by the United States and other state parties that favoured a normative status quo (Guthrie, 2008).⁶

During the Second Review Conference in 2008, the problem of ‘non-lethal agents’ was raised on multiple occasions. Switzerland championed the issue again and submitted a working paper, which highlighted the danger of undermining the CWC if incapacitants were to be considered admissible. Swiss delegates noted the ambiguities regarding RCAs and the lack of provisions covering ICAs, as well as the practice of distinguishing between the two classes based on their different effects, despite their ‘comparable application’ (OPCW, 2008b). The paper also explored the wording of the law enforcement provision of the Convention (Article II, 9(d)), which implies that there are law enforcement situations other than domestic riot control that may warrant the use of ‘toxic chemicals’ and that the law enforcement does not necessarily need to be on a state’s own territory if the context allows for it. Overall, the problems with the CWC norms raised by the Swiss were related to rule ambiguity (including only one kind of ‘non-lethal agents’, not defining law enforcement), rule inadequacy (absence of any provisions, including sanctions, on ICAs), and rule inconsistency (despite having comparable effects, different chemicals have different legal status under the Convention). Importantly, while being discussed in parallel, RCAs and ICAs were still treated as being part of the same group, that is, ‘non-lethal agents’. At the time, the arguments calling for relevant norm change did not seem to resonate extensively.

During the Thirteenth Conference of State Parties in the same year, Switzerland once again called for opening of a debate on the issue. Both the SAB and the Director-General also highlighted the need for attention to the issue of incapacitants, implicating that they would support the state parties if they decided to act in this direction. Sustained attention to the issue, although not leading directly to norm change, helped to keep the issue on the agenda for further contestation and deliberation.

In 2010, the SAB decided to start deliberations on RCAs and ICAs while ‘receiving briefings on the different [. . .] aspects surrounding the subject [. . .]’ (OPCW, 2010: 8), showing again that the issue had gained some traction. In 2011 and 2012, Switzerland hosted workshops on ICAs (see ICRC, 2010, 2012). In turn, at the Seventeenth Conference of the State Parties, Swiss delegates stated that the technical discussion had been exhaustive and that they had prepared a proposal to initiate a follow-up debate at the Third Review Conference (Swiss Confederation, 2012).

At the Third Review Conference in 2013, multiple actors raised the issue of ICAs again, namely Germany, which submitted a working paper on this issue, as did Ireland, Norway, Romania, Slovakia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the International Committee of the Red Cross (Crowley, 2016; Crowley and Dando, 2015). In the SAB Report for this Conference, the term ‘non-lethal’ was officially deemed inappropriate in connection with ICAs. Importantly, the focus of the debate at this point was narrowed and the specific subject of the debate was ICAs. There was no significant progress though, as the state parties failed to agree on initiation of relevant consultations. Moreover, the issue of Syria overshadowed other problems and shifted the focus of the delegates to this (more) imminent threat (Interview with Australian diplomat, November 2017).

At the Conference of State Parties in 2014, Australia took the lead in opening the debate on ‘central nervous system-acting chemicals’, effectively ‘rebranding’ ICAs. In their statement, Australian delegates stressed that the aerosolization (i.e. aerial dispersion) of central nervous system-acting chemicals – identified as fentanyls and other anaesthetics, sedatives, and analgesics – for law enforcement purposes is ‘not possible in an effective and safe manner’ (OPCW, 2014: 1). They also clearly stated that the terms ICAs and ‘non-lethal agents’ are principally misleading and introduced ‘central nervous system-acting chemicals’ as a more appropriate and precise term for this group of chemicals.

A year later, at the Twentieth Conference of the State Parties, Australia introduced a statement on behalf of 22 states, based on the paper from the previous year. It was submitted again in 2016, in the form of a joint paper on behalf of 36 states. This action was opposed by Russia, which stated that this issue is outside the CWC scope. In addition, Russian delegates proposed dialogue at the Third Review Conference, with a more general topic of chemicals in law enforcement, once again suggesting that the ICAs and RCAs should be (re)joined into a single issue-frame (OPCW, 2016). As such, Russia tried both to provide a counterargument to the attempts to bring ICAs and central nervous system-acting chemicals under the Convention and to counter the efforts to decouple the two kinds of ‘non-lethal agents’. Nevertheless, in 2017, there were already 39 states submitting the Joint paper on Aerosolisation of Central Nervous System-Acting Chemicals for Law Enforcement Purposes, calling on the OPCW (2017: 1) to ‘recognise new developments in the use of chemistry and increase the Organisation’s focus on preventing the re-emergence of chemical weapons, including new types of potential chemical weapons agents’.

Explaining norm stasis – and change

Our research into the CWC contestation dynamics highlights several factors that have been critical for both norm stasis and the subsequent norm change. The former has been, most of the time, related to the general disinterest in the issue and the related absence of (prominent) norm entrepreneurs that would take up the cause among the state parties, despite the urges of the SAB. In addition, it was the saliency of other CWC-related issues that sometimes resulted in ‘non-lethal agents’ being sidetracked. This dynamic took place, for example, at the Third Review Conference, which failed to move forward with the ICAs issue and include it in the final report primarily because the events in Syria ‘overshadowed’ the debate. For most delegates, the imminent suffering of civilians caused by the use of chemical weapons had an understandably higher priority than a rather long-term problem of the (mis)use of a certain class of contested chemicals; as such, the latter was sidelined in the deliberations due to the limited space on the overall agenda.⁷

For some state actors, however, this has also been an issue of prioritization on the national level. For example, Latvia did not join the joint statement on central nervous system-acting chemicals until 2017 – not out of disinterest or opposition to the issue, but because its permanent diplomatic mission in the Hague (consisting of a staff of four) has to cover a plethora of different issues (the embassy is also accredited to Luxembourg and it is tasked with the general OPCW agenda). As such, the issue was not on its agenda simply for capacity reasons (Interview with the diplomatic representative of Latvia, July 2018).

With respect to the (ongoing) norm change, there have been several enabling factors that proved critical to move the issue of ‘non-lethal’ agents forward. First, the aforementioned Dubrovka incident was effectively framed as a prominent ‘deviant event’ (Smetana and Onderco, 2018), in which the norm and the expected behaviour collide; as such, it justified the normative deliberation with respect to the applicability and validity of the norm in question.

Second, the change of framing strategy provided norm entrepreneurs with more room for discursive manoeuvring and allowed for a broader support for adopting stricter measures among the relevant audiences. Despite early mentions of RCAs (covered by the CWC) together with ICAs (not covered by the CWC) as one set of interrelated problems by Switzerland, further developments showed that discursively decoupling these two issues and focusing on the more contested of the two is a more effective framing strategy. Similarly, discursive rebranding of ICAs as ‘central nervous system-acting chemicals’ by changing the name and precisely defining the scope (speaking of aerosolization as a specific means of delivery) seemed to increase the level of international support for norm change.⁸

Third, the active involvement of Australia as a prominent norm entrepreneur certainly helped to raise awareness of the ‘non-lethal agents’ problem. Together with Switzerland, the two countries organized side events and regularly circulated relevant materials, bringing the attention of other delegates to the issue. Consequently, the problem of ‘non-lethal agents’ has been raised regularly at Conferences of the State Parties and sessions of the Executive Council (Interview with the Representative of Latvia, July 2018), and the two main norm entrepreneurs managed to get support from a total of 39 states by 2017.

Arguably, the involvement of the United States as one of the key actors was another crucial point in the debate. United States reconsidered its earlier dismissive position,⁹ embraced a new framing of the issue, and has been supportive of norm change ever since. While the exact reason for the change in the US position should be subject to further investigation, a senior OPCW official that we interviewed in the course of our research suggested that a plausible explanation lies in the US domestic politics – specifically the opioid crisis, in which fentanyl plays a prominent role.¹⁰

At the 2018 Fourth Review Conference in November 2018, the issue of ‘non-lethal agents’ gained even more prominence, with 43 states endorsing the joint paper on central nervous system-acting chemicals (OPCW, 2018b). Furthermore, the Open-Ended Working Group on the Future Priorities of the OPCW laid out its recommendations in a working paper, calling for the discussion of measures such as inclusion of central nervous system-acting chemicals into the OCAD (OPCW, 2018c) and launching a policy discussion on possible formal change of the CWC rules. Swiss delegates also introduced a working paper on verification strengthening, including that of central nervous system-acting chemicals (OPCW, 2018d). Although state parties were not able to agree on a final consensus document (mainly because of language concerning chemical weapons use in Syria), the issue certainly gained traction at the Conference; for example, ‘the United States suggested that all countries adopt a strict non-use national pledge of aerosolized [central nervous system] acting chemicals’ (Sanders-Zakre, 2018).

If the trend of rising support for norm change continues, the norm development would likely proceed through one of the following pathways. One is a formal change of the CWC rules, most likely in the form of an annex to the CWC schedules. The annex could either impose stricter regulations on the use of these chemicals or make the law enforcement provision more precise through listing chemicals not suited for such use, as was the case with the RCA adamsite. Another, less formal change, would be based on additional declarations from state parties to the CWC about the abstention from manufacturing and stockpiling certain chemicals for law enforcement purposes and the declaratory rejection of the use of these chemicals.

Conclusion

In this article, we examined the contestation of norms against ICAs and RCAs, frequently labelled ‘non-lethal agents’, under the CWC. We drew on an adapted cycle of normative change (Sandholtz, 2008) to track the development of the issue within the CWC. In the first phase, the actors promoting norm change were mainly treating ‘non-lethal agents’ as a single problem that poses a potential threat to the CWC – as we demonstrated in the article, this approach proved to be rather ineffective in terms of gaining broader support for change in the CWC rules. However, over time, the respective norm entrepreneurs altered their approach, discursively decoupled the two classes of chemicals, and rebranded ICAs as ‘central nervous system-acting chemicals’, with a new focus on more precise delimitation of this class of chemical agents. This proved to be a more successful framing strategy that helped to increase support among the state parties for a norm change concerning ‘non-lethal agents’ in the CWC regime.

Our study also highlighted the role of several factors that have been critical to the dynamics of norm contestation, particularly the activities of persistent norm entrepreneurs, response to ‘deviant events’, and an adequate choice of framing. On the other hand, we also showed that there are circumstances that present an obstacle for successful norm change in less salient issues – in our particular case, the interviewees that themselves participated in the OPCW debates repeatedly affirmed that the events in Syria and other serious misuses of nerve agents¹¹ simply overshadowed the less-pressing problem of ‘non-lethal agents’.

The process that would end up with formal changes of the CWC rules on ‘non-lethal agents’ is, as of 2019, far from complete, and there is certainly resistance among some state parties to proceed further with these changes.¹² Nevertheless, our research reveals the patterns of norm contestation and the shifts in the discourse that underpin a gradual norm change in the given institutional setting – in accordance with the assumptions of our conceptual apparatus. If the issue were to be taken forward, the next step should be to follow the recommendations of the Open-Ended Working Group on Future Priorities of the OPCW and launch a policy discussion on formal rule changes concerning ‘non-lethal agents’ in the CWC.

Footnotes

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: We acknowledge funding by the Charles University Research Centre programme UNCE/HUM/028 (Peace Research Center Prague/Faculty of Social Sciences) and by the Charles University, project GA UK No. 546217.

ORCID iD

Michal Smetana

Notes

Author biographies

Hana Martínková is a postgraduate student of international relations and security studies. In her research, she primarily focuses on international norms related to weapons of mass destruction. She is the principal investigator of the project ‘Contested Meanings of the Norm Against Chemical Weapons: CWC and the Issue of “Non-Lethal” Agents’ funded by the Charles University Grant Agency.

Michal Smetana is a Research Associate at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, and Coordinator of the newly established Peace Research Center Prague. His most recent articles have been published in International Affairs, The Washington Quarterly, Journal of International Relations and Development, International Relations, Asia Europe Journal, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, The Nonproliferation Review, and other academic and policy journals. He is the author of Nuclear Deviance: Stigma Politics and the Rules of the Nonproliferation Game.

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