Multiple Uses of Chemicals:

Chemical processes determine who we are. Chemistry in the brain gives us our sense of being and helps to determine how we act. The oxygen we breathe is from chemical processes in plants, and many of the consumer products we buy are the output of some chemical process. Chemistry is central to our life on earth, with many of the major global issues we are facing requiring chemical solutions, be it understanding what happens in the earth’s atmosphere, providing clean water, improving food supplies, or discovering new medicines. Chemistry thus has enormous potential to contribute positively to global well-being.
But is has not always been like this. Ninety years ago in World War I, chemists were actively perfecting weapons that relied on the physical and toxic properties of chemicals. The use of chlorine, phosgene and mustard gas in WWI, which was promoted and perfected by chemists and chemical engineers, resulted in some 1.3 million casualties, of whom an estimated 90,000 died soon after exposure. Many others died years later from the lung injuries sustained on the battlefield following inhalation of the various chemical-warfare gases and aerosols.

In World War I, chemists considered it their duty to contribute to their country’s war effort. Munitions had to be produced to suit military strategy. But the carnage of WWI had a lasting impact. It led to calls for treaties outlawing chemical warfare. First there was the 1925 Geneva Protocol. But we had to wait a further 70 years for the Chemical Weapons Convention to enforce chemical disarmament.

Enforcement requires governments to ensure that their citizens do not develop or promote the use of chemical weapons. Chemists have a crucial role to play in this process. If the proscriptions of the CWC are to succeed, chemists will have to support them. For it is chemists whose help will be needed to make the chemical-warfare agents and test the suitability of new ones for use in munitions. Chemists will thus have to decide whether they will help to make chemical weapons or refuse to have anything to do with them.

The law is clear: Making chemical weapons is illegal. Not all chemists are aware of this. Many do not know about the CWC, and thus there is a need to inform them about the treaty and the choices they will have to make in their careers.

To facilitate this process, the OPCW and the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) held a conference in Oxford, United Kingdom, in the summer of 2005 to discuss this issue. Two decisions came out of this meeting. The first was to have a working group consider how best to promote codes of conduct in the chemical industry, and the second was the recognition that there was a need for educational material for chemists, which both encouraged them to consider the implications of their research and informed them about the CWC and the OPCW.