"Small World" - That's Why We Need to Protect It

I saw this article in the Korea Times yesterday, "Korea selected as council member for chemical weapons treaty" (November 28, 2012):

Korea has been re-elected to an executive council of the Chemical Weapons Convention, Seoul's foreign ministry said Wednesday. The convention, which took effect in 1997, is an arms control agreement which outlaws the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons. The convention is administered by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, an independent entity based in The Hague, Netherlands, and has 188 member states. During the Conference of the States Parties held there, Korea became one of 21 members of the executive council for the May 2013-May 2015 term, according to the ministry. The council plays a role in verifying the scrapping of chemical weapons, implementing international agreements and supervising the management of its secretariat, it added. "As the country having the world's sixth-largest chemical industry, Korea has served as a member of the executive council since the convention took effect, and continues to strive to play a key role in scrapping chemical weapons and urging non-member countries to join the move," the ministry said in a statement.

That reminded me of two things: first, that one of my childhood friends is head of the Industry Verification Branch at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which is located in The Hague Area of the Netherlands; and second, that when my friend took the job a couple of years ago, she asked my then-eleven-year-old son to create some artwork on the danger of chemicals, so he did:

Chemical 1
En-Uk Sequoya Hwang

Chemical 2
En-Uk Sequoya Hwang

Chemical 3
En-Uk Sequoya Hwang

Chemical 4
En-Uk Sequoya Hwang

Chemical 5
En-Uk Sequoya Hwang

My friend liked the result and wrote these words in response:

I like them all! The face in the beaker (#1) is a bit scary. I think he has a future in flag design. They seem to be the colors and shapes of many countries' flags.

He got the idea pretty clearly, didn't he? He has . . . [a way] of making something simple represent a complex circumstance. Does he have description for the symbols? What are the oblong things that look like bar codes?

En-Uk never did explain himself . . . but artists don't have to. Anyway, I wrote an email to my friend yesterday, providing a link to the Korea Times article, and she wrote back:

Yes, this is my work. I just finished a big annual "Conference of States Parties" today. They just approve what the smaller "Executive Council" forwards to them from their 3-4 meetings per year. The EC is made up of 42 of the 188 member states and has a rotating representation, so Korea will function as one of the representatives of the Asian group. I see them occasionally.

Small world.

Yeah, it is a small world. That's why we need to protect it . . .