Beefing up the Bio Weapons Convention

Efforts to strengthen implementation of the international treaty banning biological weapons have restarted after they collapsed in bitter disagreement in 2001. A meeting of experts in Geneva, running from August 18 to 29, is being hosted by the United Nations to find a new way forward for the troubled process. "It's a long, sad story," Richard Lennane, political affairs officer at the UN Department of Disarmament Affairs in Geneva, told The Scientist. The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) came into force in 1975 and commits the 150 states that are party to it to prohibit the development, production, and stockpiling of biological and toxin weapons. But there is no enforcement or verification machinery within the treaty. A long process of negotiation to add these missing elements began in the 1990s.This resulted in a new protocol, to be agreed in time for the Fifth Review Conference of the convention in November 2001. Early in 2001, however, the new Bush administration in the United States conducted a complete review of policy on biological weapons and decided that the protocol did not suit US national interests. "They could not see that it would be effective in catching the bad guys and [believed it] would interfere with the legitimate commercial and biodefense activity of the good guys," said Lennane.According to Michael Moodie, president of the Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute in Washington, D.C., "The Bush administration said [the new protocol] wasn't going to do the job it was intended to do... They felt it would jeopardize confidential business information and national security information, [and] they were not getting sufficient return for the risks." Moodie added, however, that the problems were not solely caused by the United States, although they generally get the blame for blocking the protocol.The proceedings broke up in acrimony, and the process was suspended in December 2001, leaving many of the major European states deeply unhappy with the result and with the US stance. But some parties were quite content. "Various countries had never been very keen on having a protocol and having their own suspect activities observed or constrained, so they were pretty much delighted that the US was standing up taking the flak on this," said Lennane.With the idea of international inspections and verification apparently dead in the water, this week's meeting in Geneva is intended to begin work on a new way forward. The focus is on national measures that states can take to enshrine their treaty obligations within their national laws. But exactly what will emerge is still uncertain.Richard Lennane reports a much-improved atmosphere. "People are exchanging information about helping each other to improve national implementation," he said, "[although] it has been a bit of a mystery to everybody as to how exactly it is going to work out and what the meeting is going to achieve."Expectations are generally low, with the most likely outcome being a series of small steps forward until the Sixth Review Conference in 2006. "I don't have expectations for major groundbreaking developments," said Michael Moodie. "They have agreed on a work plan until 2006, and people are going to be comfortable with that unless something major happens that redefines the issues and the urgency with which they feel they have to deal with things."The immediate next step comes in November of this year, with a full meeting of all states that are party to the convention. This will review the results of the current experts' meeting and will decide where to go next.

Beefing up the Bio Weapons Convention

After a controversial suspension in 2001, work on the Biological Weapons Convention resumes in Geneva

Aug 26, 2003

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