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Using Distributed Ledger Technology to resolve chemical trade discrepancies under the Chemical Weapons Convention By Braden Holt • Steve Lipnick • Christina McAllister • Bill Pugh • Cindy Vestergaard • Jim Wimberley Every year, States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention declare to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons their trade in dual-use chemicals—substances with legitimate industrial uses that can also be weaponized. Yet year after year, these declarations don’t add up. In reporting for 2023, three-quarters of declared dual-use chemical transfers had discrepancies, representing a risk that some chemicals are unaccounted for and could potentially have been diverted for use as chemical weapons. Editor’s Note: Three external authors are from the developers contracted to develop the MATCH 2.0 platform. Steve Lipnick, VP of Business Development, and Jim Wimberley, Senior Solutions Engineer, at DataTrails, the DLT developer of MATCH 2.0, and Bill Pugh, CEO of True North, which developed MATCH 2.0’s user interface.
By Cindy Vestergaard, Senior Fellow and Director, Converging Technologies and Global Security Program
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Bill Pugh, a technologist and entrepreneur, discusses the importance of AI policy creation and violation tracking. He explains how his company, True North, uses distributed ledger technology to capture and secure data related to traffic incidents and other events. Pugh emphasizes the need for responsible data analysis and implementation to make data actionable for entities. He also highlights the significance of mentorship and networking in the tech industry, encouraging individuals to find mentors and build diverse networks. Bill shares his journey as an entrepreneur and the importance of ownership and accountability in business. And he tops it off by discussing the responsibility to invest in the future and engage across the generations.
Testing next generation distributed ledger technology (DLT) for secure, accurate tracking of dual-use chemicals, detection of discrepancies, and mitigation of proliferation risks.
Behind every chemical transfer is a story, and too often, that story includes discrepancies in reported data. The Stimson Center’s MATCH project team has completed development of an updated DLT prototype and is demonstrating to CWC National Authorities and other stakeholders how it traces these narratives and creates a clear, immutable record of each transaction, aligning records of national authorities and industry while maintaining data confidentiality, reducing risks of misreporting, and enhancing nonproliferation by enabling faster reconciliation of discrepancies in the annual reporting of chemicals covered by the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). “This groundbreaking partnership removes data silos and forges a unified process view – a single, trusted source of truth – that will revolutionize how government agencies operate. Knowing that your data has provenance, governance, and an immutable trust ledger is transformational in the most critical use cases” said TrueNorth CEO, Bill Pugh.
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