Declarations

According to the Convention, States Parties are obliged to submit to the OPCW declarations on activities relevant to chemical weapons in order to ensure that the scheduled chemicals and their precursors are only developed, produced, otherwise acquired, stockpiled, transferred or used for peaceful purposes.

Obligation to inform the authorities
Thus, companies, institutions etc. which produce, consume, process, import or export chemicals are obliged to provide information to the Danish Enterprise and Construction Authority. The Authority will submit this information to the OPCW in the form of declarations.

The obligations also include mixtures
The declaration obligations do not only apply to the individual chemicals but also to mixtures including chemicals listed in Schedules 2 and 3 if the concentration level of the chemical is 30% or above and if the ease of recovery from the mixture of the chemical is deemed to pose a risk to the object and purpose of the Convention.

Different types of declarations
Under the Convention there are 2 main types of declarations: initial and annual. Again, for annual declarations there are 2 types: declarations on activities in the previous calendar year and declarations on anticipated activities in the coming calendar year.

Following the entry into force of the Convention, Denmark and the other States Parties submitted to the OPCW initial declarations concerning possession of chemical weapons, facilities for the production of chemical weapons and other relevant chemical industry activities.