Columbia International Affairs Online: Policy Briefs

CIAO DATE: 01/2014

Disarming Syria: The Chemical Weapons Challenge

Trevor Findlay

November 2013

Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University

Abstract

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the United Nations are undertaking an unprecedented operation in Syria: disarming a country of a particular type of weaponry in the midst of a civil war. Professor Findlay discussed the issue in the context of the overlapping legal, institutional, technical, and political demands being made of Syria and the prospects for success of the operation.