Members of the U.N. investigation team take samples from the ground to test for chemicals in the Damascus countryside of Zamalka, Syria, Aug. 29, 2013 (AP Photo/Local Committee of Arbeen).

A series of recent media reports have refocused attention on chemical weapons and highlighted the threat presented by their possible use by terrorists. Stories about the so-called Islamic State (IS) seizing the remains of Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons stockpile in Iraq; the large number of abandoned chemical weapons that U.S soldiers discovered during the post-Saddam occupation of Iraq; and the continued cases of chemicals being used as weapons of war in Syria have all generated concern and alarm. But they also highlight the ways in which the international chemical weapons regime must be updated to reflect the current nature of […]

Cote d’Ivoire President Alassane Ouattara in Paris, Jan. 27, 2012 (AP photo by Thibault Camus).

Earlier this month, Cote d’Ivoire’s opposition parties rejected Youssouf Bakayoko’s re-election as the head of the country’s election commission. Bakayoko, a member of President Alassane Ouattara’s ruling coalition, has served as head of the commission since it was set up in 2010. The rejection was a reminder of both the fractious nature of Ivorian politics and the deep ambivalence within the opposition Front Populaire Ivoirien (FPI) about reaching agreement with the Ouattara administration. Reform of the electoral commission, which parliament approved in May 2014, was meant to be a further step in political reconciliation and normalization, but the new makeup […]