This web page provides general information on lists of chemicals of proliferation concern put together by international frameworks, intergovernmental organizations, and national authorities.

Manually curated and structurally annotated versions of these lists of chemicals can be found here.

International frameworks. A number of international frameworks contribute to a coordinated multilateral effort to stem the proliferation of chemical weapons (CW) and promote chemical disarmament. To serve their purpose, these frameworks contain lists of chemicals that can be employed as chemical warfare agents, i.e. the toxic chemicals on which chemical weapons are based, or precursors for their synthesis (hereafter referred to as CW-control lists). Some of these CW-control lists are a compilation of exact structures, where each chemical is individually enumerated. Other lists comprise both exact structures as well as families of chemicals identified by a common scaffold with variable substituents.

Intergovernmental organizations and national authorities. To assist the implementation of CWC mandates, support export controls, and promote chemical security in general, other intergovernmental organizations and individual countries incorporate these CW-control lists in their regulations and national legislation, often integrated with the addition of other chemicals. Moreover, further control lists are crafted by international organizations and national authorities. Some examples are listed below.

Country-specific norms. In addition to general export control legislation and regulation, several countries have norms that pose additional restrictions on the export of dual-use chemicals to specific countries that pose a particular chemical proliferation risk. For instance, the European Union tightly regulates the export of dual-use chemicals to Syria, within the scope of the restricting measures imposed by Council Regulation (EU) No 36/2012, first issued in 2012 and subsequently subjected to various amendments. Beyond posing additional restrictions on the chemicals already present in the general EU export control lists, in Annex Ia and Annex IX, this EU regulation comprises additional lists of dual-use chemicals that, although being widely used in chemical industry for non-military purposes, are of concern for their possible role as precursors for the synthesis of chemical warfare agents when exported to Syria. See our structurally annotated version of the Council Regulation (EU) 36/2012 Annex Ia and IX chemicals.