Interpol Pushes for Strong Anti-Bioterror Laws

By Jon Fox
Global Security Newswire

GENEVA — Pushing to close gaps in anti-bioterrorism legislation among its member states, Interpol has drafted a model law it hopes countries will either adopt or modify for their use (see GSN, July 14).

Currently, law enforcement agencies in a number of countries are constrained by an inadequate legal framework to detect and stop the development of biological weapons, Interpol officials said.  In many cases, no law would be violated until a biological agent is actually deployed.

“It’s just simply difficult to prosecute, not to mention investigate and convict,” said Scott Spence, manager of Interpol’s biocriminalization project.

Yesterday, Interpol officials from the organization’s headquarters in Lyon, France, presented the draft legislation to diplomatic delegates gathered here for a review of a 1972 international treaty banning biological weapons.

Strong laws are necessary to provide police forces with the tools to stop the development, transport and use of biological weapon by terrorist groups, he said.  If law enforcement is unable to act before biological agents are employed, it is already too late.  “What you want to prohibit is everything up to use,” Spence said.

In order to describe the legislative terrain, identify gaps and measure progress, Interpol is compiling a database of national anti-bioterror laws that will be accessible on the international police organization’s Web site.  Over time Interpol hopes to show more and more countries adopting stronger laws.

The information accessible on the Internet, however, will not include country-specific information.  That data is “just too sensitive,” Spence said.  Instead, the statistics will include overall numbers and numbers by Interpol region.  The information, as it is collected, will be available online starting either at the end of this week or the beginning of the next.

“There will be the beginnings of a very one-stop shopping database,” he said.  “This will be a long process, but it is absolutely critical that we have an understanding of what legislation is out there.”

Created with the assistance of the Verification Research Training and Information Center (VERTIC) in London, the Interpol law would criminalize the development, production, stockpiling, transfer and financing of biological weapons.  It would also establish a biological emergency response and investigation support system, a bio-specific response team.

Such a team would coordinate activities between the separate agencies — national security, law enforcement and public health — likely to be involved in a response to an act of bioterrorism.

“We’ve put together a lot of elements and a lot of issues into one law,” said Angela Woodward, deputy director of VERTIC.

The bill is also designed to assist countries in meeting their obligations to prevent the proliferation of biological weapons under the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, a treaty with 155 member states.

Action is imperative, because the threat of a terrorist attack with a biological weapon remains real, cautioned Adrian Baciu, coordinator of Interpol’s bioterrorism unit.

“We are dealing with something very serious,” he said, adding that terrorists, including al-Qaeda, are still considering large-scale attacks and are still interested in biological weapons.  “It’s obvious and has been demonstrated by the arrests worldwide.”

National police forces must be enabled by new laws because they “should have and will have a role to play,” Baciu said.  Legislation is crucial because “we have to respect the law, we have boundaries … which is not the case for terrorists.”

While experts say it is difficult to know if a sophisticated act of bioterrorism is within the capacity of nonstate actors, the gap between intentions and capability is shrinking all the time.

“What we know is that the trend lines are all pointing the wrong way,” said Barry Kellman, a professor at DePaul Law School in Chicago and legal adviser to Interpol.

Speaking in Geneva, Kellman called for aggressive legislation to safeguard against what he said is the most likely way for a terrorist group to inflict mass casualties.

“Very little is being done to prevent biocrimes,” he said.  “The international community is fiddling while the world burns.”

Under the Interpol draft law, countries would devise their own lists of controlled substances.  Interpol can direct legislative bodies to suggested lists, but the final decisions will be up to the national governments, Spence said.

The law was designed to be comprehensive and, while countries are urged to adopt it in whole, they are free to adopt or reject certain elements.  Spence stressed the draft legislation is part of a service to Interpol member states not a mandate.

“It’s intended to be like a tool kit from which certain provisions may be picked,” he said.  “There has to be a certain measure of flexibility when it comes to using this as a model, and we are aware of that.”

Interpol plans promote the draft law from its offices in member states and also to visit capitals to assist governments in tailoring the bill to their needs.

“We want to get our feet on the ground we want to go into capitals and do the hard work that must be done,” Spence said.  “It’s not glamorous. It’s very hard work but it must be done.”

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