On December 15, 2016, the United Nations Security Council, acting under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations, passed a resolution calling for a framework to keep non-state actors from acquiring weapons of mass destruction.  According to the press release, the resolution called upon member states to strengthen their national, legally-binding measures aimed at preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and endorsed a recent report on such measures that member states have already implemented. The resolution was passed in the wake of various deployments of chemical weapons in Syria and North Korean-implemented nuclear tests.