Living with Chemicals: How to Prevent Their Use for Hostile Purposes and Mitigate Chemical Risks

Chemicals are part of daily life. They are essential, amongst others, to fight disease, produce and preserve food, provide clean water, manufacture goods, and provide energy. But chemicals also can be exploited for hostile purposes. Certain precursor chemicals, for example, can be converted into chemical weapons, prohibited under the Chemical Weapons Convention. Other industrial chemicals can be used directly as improvised weapon given their toxicity or explosiveness. Access to, use and transfers of chemicals therefore are subject to strict controls. Balancing chemical security objectives with ensuring that chemical products can legitimately be use is complicated and requires a multi-stakeholder governance approach. It requires legislation and administrative measures, but also voluntary compliance assurance by the manufacturers and users of chemicals. This paper provides an overview on the chemical risks embedded in today’s society, explains how trends in science, technology and commerce may affect this threat environment, and discusses good practices to prevent misuse and mitigate risks.