congratulations to Ambassador Shannon on his election as Chairman of this Ad hoc Committee. At the last session of the First Committee of the United Nations General Assembly, the Belgian delegation listed the various reasons which led it to resume negotiations on a chemical weapons convention with optimism: the Paris and Canberra conferences, the restructuring of the subsidiary bodies, President Bush's proposals and so on. Since then we may add to these grounds for optimism the encouraging developments in the inter-sessional meetings, which, thanks to the efforts of the Chairman of the Committee, Ambassador P. Morel, have made significant progress possible in the "rolling text". We can also add the contribution made by the documents produced by the bilateral American-Soviet negotiations, the prospects for destruction of American and Soviet stocks even before the Convention enters into force, the improvement in the mandate and the co-operation of a continually growing number of non-member countries in the work of the Ad hoc Committee, a better assurance of large-scale accession to the future convention. Belgium, which attaches absolute priority to the negotiations on chemical weapons, is aware of the number of important problems still to be settled, such as various aspects of verification, the composition and powers of the Executive Council, the measures to be considered after violations have been detected, the order of destruction, some of the final clauses and co-operation. As we embark on consideration of these problems, and also during the finalization of other parts of the convention, we must draw a CD/PV.544 5 (Mr. Houllez, Belgium) distinction between substantive problems which can be solved only by means of policy decisions often involving compromises between two different overall approaches (for example multilateralism and bilateralism) and technical details which are of undoubted importance but could be resolved by the 
**Analysis**
The text discusses the negotiations on a chemical weapons convention and the progress made in the Ad hoc Committee. It highlights the reasons for optimism, such as the encouraging developments in inter-sessional meetings and the contributions made by bilateral negotiations. The text also mentions the challenges that still need to be addressed, including verification, the composition of the Executive Council, and measures to be taken after violations have been detected. The focus is on the diplomatic and political aspects of the negotiations rather than on specific economic or social issues.

**Category**
International trade, Humanitarian aid and relief