Which countries have signed but not ratified the VX treaty?

1. What the user’s question likely means, and why it matters

Asking which countries “have signed but not ratified the VX treaty” implicitly treats “VX” as the subject of an international legal instrument banning or regulating that particular nerve agent; in treaty practice, signature is a preliminary political act while ratification is the domestic legal step that creates binding consent, so the distinction is consequential for states’ legal obligations and for monitoring compliance ^{[1] [2] [3]}.

2. What the supplied reporting actually covers

The documents provided are primarily primers on treaty law—defining signature, ratification, accession, and the duties of signatories to refrain from acts defeating a treaty’s object and purpose—but they do not contain a list of states that have signed but not ratified any instrument specifically labeled “VX treaty” ^{[1] [2] [3] [4]}. Some excerpts and secondary sources in the set do name states that signed but did not ratify particular high-profile treaties (for example, references to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and to other instruments in U.S. practice), but none tie those examples to a standalone “VX” instrument ^{[5] [6]}.

3. How treaty-signature status is tracked and where authoritative lists live

Authoritative records of which states have signed, ratified, acceded to, or neither signed nor ratified any given treaty are maintained by treaty depositaries and institutional depositories—typically the UN treaty database or the designated depositary for the treaty in question—because signature and ratification are formal, recorded international acts; general guides in the provided reporting describe this practice but do not substitute for depositary data ^{[3] [7]}.

4. Possible interpretations: VX as a standalone treaty versus inclusion in broader regimes

There is a plausible alternative reading: VX, as a Schedule 1 nerve agent, is banned under broader multilateral instruments such as the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) rather than by a discrete “VX treaty.” The supplied sources do not state that explicitly, so that interpretation cannot be confirmed from these materials alone; determining which countries have signed but not ratified any specific VX-focused instrument therefore requires consulting the relevant treaty’s depositary or the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) records—neither of which are present in the supplied reporting (none of the provided sources list OPCW or CWC depositary data) ^{[3] [4]}.

5. What can and cannot be asserted from the supplied sources

From the supplied reporting it is possible to assert only the legal distinction between signing and ratifying and the normative expectation that signatories not frustrate a treaty’s object and purpose pending ratification ^{[1] [2] [4]}. It is not possible to produce a factual list of countries that have signed but not ratified a “VX treaty,” because the reporting contains no such list or reference; any attempt to name countries without citing the treaty depositary or treaty-specific records would go beyond the provided evidence ^{[1] [3] [4]}.

6. Recommended next steps to answer the question authoritatively

To answer definitively, consult the authoritative depositary or custodian of the relevant instrument—if VX is covered by the Chemical Weapons Convention, consult the OPCW/CWC depository records; if there exists a separate VX-specific instrument, consult the depositary indicated in that treaty’s final text or the UN Treaty Collection online—because the documents here document process but not the membership status needed to answer the primary question ^{[3] [7] [4]}.