Beyond being a State Party to the Chemical Weapons Convention since its entry into force in 1997, Canada is among the largest voluntary contributors to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and recently firmly restated its support for the OPCW’s tireless work to rid the world of chemical weapons. Though the use of chemical weapons is illegal under international law, the taboo on deploying them has been eroding after their repeated use in the Syrian civil war, but also in Iraq, Malaysia and Britain since 2012. In a special session, member states of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) voted in favour of a British-led proposal by a 82-24 margin, easily reaching the two-thirds majority needed for it to succeed. The UK's ambassador to the Netherlands, Peter Wilson, who is also Britain's permanent representative to the OPCW, said the measure was passed by an 'overwhelming' majority of 82 to 24. This means that although Russia has been widely blamed by the UK and many other nations for the attack in Salisbury the OPCW was unable to offer an opinion on where the weapons came from and who was behind it.
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons is granted the power to assign blame for chemical attacks by its constituent countries. The move, proposed by the United Kingdom, received wide support, but was condemned by Russia.