Rethink Rebuild Society (RR) expresses its extreme worry at the apparently increasingly normalised use of chemical weapons around the world. After numerous incidents of chemical attacks in Syria, this phenomenon has now occurred in Britain as a Russian-made nerve agent was used against a former spy and his daughter in Salisbury that has put the lives of civilians in the vicinity at risk.
In October last year, the UN Security Council failed to pass a resolution - due to a Russian veto - that would have extended the investigation of chemical weapons use in Syria through the Joint Investigative Mechanism. International failure to hold perpetrators of chemical weapons accountable has helped normalise the use of such weaponry, and have allowed such an attack to occur on British soil. Other countries are also at risk if such attacks become the norm.
We hope this alarming incident will reinforce the urge to prevent not just the use of chemical weapons, and not only the use of other banned weapons such as cluster munitions and of indiscriminate attacks such as barrel bombs, but all attacks targeting civilians in Syria and elsewhere. The past years have shown how failure to stop ongoing violence in one place will splinter and spread to put the rest of the world in danger. Amidst calls for a ceasefire in Syria including UN resolution 2401, violators of such attacks must be stopped and held accountable.
