Important Organizations

Important Organizations
OPCW - The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons
-Director General: Ahmet zmc (Turkish diplomat)
-Based in The Hague, Netherlands, the OPCW was formed in 1997 to enforce the 1992 Chemical Weapons Convention, the first international treaty to outlaw an entire class of weapons.
~The convention prohibits the development, production, acquisition, stockpiling, retention, transfer or use of chemical weapons. It came into force in 1997 and has been ratified by 189 states. Of those, seven Albania, India, Iraq, Libya, Russia and the United States, along with a country identified by the OPCW only as "a State Party" but widely believed to be South Korea have declared stockpiles of chemical weapons. These include mustard gas and nerve agents like sarin and VX.
~ Non-signatories to the treaty include North Korea, Angola, Egypt and South Sudan. Israel and Myanmar have signed but not ratified the convention.
-The organization has 189 member states,Syria is recent member.
-The OPCW has conducted more than 5,000 inspections in 86 countries. It says 100 percent of the declared chemical weapons stockpiles have been inventoried and verified.
-OPCW statistics released this year showed that 81.1 per cent of the worlds declared chemical weapons had already been destroyed, and specifically that the US had destroyed about 90 per cent of its stock while Russia had done away with roughly 70 per cent.
-Albania, India and "a third country" believed to be South Korea have completed destruction of their declared stockpiles.


ICC - International Criminal Court (ICC)
-Article 16 of Rome Statute allows the UN Security Council allow such a deferment, Article 27 expressly rules out immunity for Heads of State, elected representatives and government officials, and Article 64 requires the trial be conducted in the presence of the accused.
-Thirty-four African countries, and 122 nations, are ratified signatories to the Rome Statue, the framework that unpins the ICC, but India, China, Israel and the United States have not signed on.
- The court has opened eight investigations thus far, all targeted at African nations Uganda, the Central African Republic, Sudan, Kenya, Libya, Coite dIvoire, Mali and the Democratic Republic of Congo. {All African countries therefore AU intend to withdraw from it}
G 20
The G20 accounts for 90 per cent of the global economy, 75 per cent of global trade and two-thirds of the world population. Its members are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Indonesia, India, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the UK, the US and European Union.



BRICS
Brazil, India, Russia, China and South Africa grouped in the BRICS bloc seen as an alternative economic powerhouse all go into the meeting experiencing slowing growth, embattled currencies and huge capital outflows.
On the sidelines of the St. Petersburg summit, the BRICS leaders are expected to work for a consensus on creating a $100 billion currency reserve fund to help ease short-term liquidity pressure and safeguard financial stability of major emerging economies.
The BRICS bloc is also reported to have agreed on the capital structure for a proposed development bank that aims to reduce their reliance on Western financial institutions. The bank is likely to have $50 billion as initial capital.



ASEM



AT A GLANCE:

ESTABLISHED: 1996

MEMBERSHIP: 51

COORDINATORS:ASIA - Malaysia, MongoliaEUROPE - European External Action Service, Lithuania



The Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) is an informal process of dialogue and cooperation bringing together the 27 European Union member states, 2 European countries, and the European Commission with 20 Asian countries and the ASEAN Secretariat. The ASEM dialogue addresses political, economic and cultural issues, with the objective of strengthening the relationship between our two regions, in a spirit of mutual respect and equal partnership.
The initial ASEM partnership in 1996 consisted of 15 EU member states and 7 ASEAN member states plus China, Japan, Korea and the European Commission.
ASEM saw the first enlargement during the 5th ASEM Summit in 2004 in Hanoi (Vietnam), where the 10 new EU Member States (Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia) and three new ASEAN countries (Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar) became officially part of the ASEM process.
The second round of enlargement in 2008 during the 7th ASEM Summit in Beijing (China) brought in Bulgaria, India, Mongolia, Pakistan, Romania and the ASEAN Secretariat, increasing total ASEM membership to 45 partners.
In October 2010, the 8th ASEM Summit of Heads of Government and State in Brussels (Belgium) welcomed three member states to the ASEM process: Australia, New Zealand and Russia. This third round of enlargement increased total ASEM membership to 48 partners.
During the 9th ASEM Summit of Heads of Government and State in Vientiane (Laos) in November 2012, ASEM was joined officially by Bangladesh, Norway, and Switzerland. This latest round of enlargement brings the total ASEM membership to 51 partners.


India is venue for 10th ASEM Summit


RIC Meet
The foreign ministers of India, Russia and China met in Bangalore to discuss regional issues of mutual concern, with a special focus on bringing stability to Afghanistan. This was the 9th meeting of the RIC (Russia, India, China) trilateral forum, where member countries convened to discuss shared interests on the core issues of regional security - terrorism, religious extremism, political separatism, etc - and coordinate their policies


Regards
Sumeet Mahendra