After twenty-four years of bilateral and multilateral effort, the Conference on Disarmament has sent the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) to the UN General Assembly. The signing ceremony in January 1993 launched the process of national ratification; with that tn mind, the contributors to this book address the issues of ratification, implementation, and verification of the CWC. Leading thinkers on chemical weapons control explore the interrelationships among security, cost benefit, political realignment, and verification that are critical to the CWC debate. The authors challenge and explore assumptions and ideas represented by the treaty and raise points that need further consideration as the CWC moves toward implementation.