(a) Purposes of the Convention. (1) The Convention imposes upon the United States, as a State Party, certain declaration, inspection, and other obligations. In addition, the United States and other States Parties to the Convention undertake never under any circumstances to:

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(i) Develop, produce, otherwise acquire, stockpile, or retain chemical weapons, or transfer, directly or indirectly, chemical weapons to anyone;

(ii) Use chemical weapons;

(iii) Engage in any military preparations to use chemical weapons; or

(iv) Assist, encourage or induce, in any way, anyone to engage in any activity prohibited by the Convention.

(2) One objective of the Convention is to assure States Parties that lawful activities of chemical producers and users are not converted to unlawful activities related to chemical weapons. To achieve this objective and to give States Parties a mechanism to verify compliance, the Convention requires the United States and all other States Parties to submit declarations concerning chemical production, consumption, processing and other activities, and to permit international inspections within their borders.

(b) Purposes of the Chemical Weapons Convention Regulations. To fulfill the United States’ obligations under the Convention, the CWCR (parts 710 through 729 of this subchapter) prohibit certain activities, and compel the submission of information from all facilities in the United States, except for Department of Defense and Department of Energy facilities and facilities of other U.S. Government agencies that notify the USNA of their decision to be excluded from the CWCR on activities, including exports and imports of scheduled chemicals and certain information regarding unscheduled discrete organic chemicals as described in parts 712 through 715 of the CWCR. U.S. Government facilities are those owned by or leased to the U.S. Government, including facilities that are contractor-operated. The CWCR also require access for on-site inspections and monitoring by the OPCW, as described in parts 716 and 717 of the CWCR.