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 The 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons
Convention (BWC) prohibits the development, production, possession,
stockpiling, and transfer of biological weapons (BW). It complements
the Geneva Protocol banning the
use of chemical and biological weapons in war. The BWC has a fundamental
weakness, however; it lacks a formal inspection system to ensure
that the treaty's 153 member states are complying with their obligations.
(While 169 states have signed the BWC, only 153 of those have also
ratified the Convention.) Instead, Article VI of the BWC offers only the ineffective option
of appealing to the
United
Nations Security Council in cases of suspected noncompliance.
Since the BWC entered into force over 30 years ago, the number of countries
possessing or actively pursuing BW has more than doubled, from five
to roughly a dozen today, including some member states of the Convention.
The spread of these weapons has increased the risk that they will
be used or will fall into the hands of terrorists. Even if BW agents
are not employed deliberately, they could escape from a clandestine
production plant and cause a deadly epidemic in the civilian population.
In 1979, for example, anthrax
bacteria leaked from a BW plant in the Soviet city of Sverdlovsk,
triggering a serious outbreak of the disease.
In an effort to strengthen the BWC, member states to the Convention held
a special conference in September 1994. They established the Ad
Hoc Group to negotiate a legally binding
BWC Protocol
that would help to deter violations of the BWC. Over the ensuing
six and a half years, the Ad Hoc Group convened periodically in
Geneva, although the negotiations progressed at a slow pace. One
reason for the difficulty is that the BWC is harder to monitor
than international treaties controlling nuclear or even chemical
weapons (CW), for the following reasons:
- Although CW must be produced in multi-ton quantities, relatively
small amounts of BW agents can be militarily significant.
- Whereas chemical warfare agents (such as sarin
and mustard gas) have no legitimate uses and can be banned outright,
dangerous organisms and toxins
have a number of peaceful or defensive applications. In addition
to the use of pathogens and toxins to make protective vaccines,
several toxins with a history of military development are employed
as tools in biomedical research. A few toxins, such as botulinum
toxin (Bottox), have therapeutic value in medical practice.
- Legitimate biodefense programs and advanced pharmaceutical facilities
have similar capabilities to offensive BW sites, including special
ventilation systems, sterilization and decontamination practices,
and specialized production equipment. Thus, a legitimate facility
may come under suspicion, while a weapons facility could hide
behind a seemingly legitimate cover.
- Since the BWC prohibits the possession of biological agents
for offensive military ends while permitting their use for peaceful
scientific, therapeutic, or defensive purposes, judgments of treaty
compliance may hinge on an assessment of intent.
- As technology continues to improve, detecting the clandestine
production of BW agents at dual-capable facilities, such as vaccine
plants, will become even more difficult. Production facilities
could produce militarily significant quantities of a pathogen
from a seed culture in a matter of days.
- Advanced biopharmaceutical plants use "clean-in-place"
systems that flush fermenters and pipes with chemicals and hot
water to kill microorganisms. Such systems could eliminate all
traces of a BW agent in a few hours. Thus, even short-notice inspections
may not turn up conclusive evidence of illicit production.
Because of these dual-use
dilemmas, the BWC Protocol was not designed to be capable of detecting
violations with a level of confidence equal to that of treaties
controlling nuclear or chemical arms. Instead, the primary aim of
the BWC Protocol was to provide greater information about, and access
to, dual-capable facilities and activities that could potentially
be misdirected for BW purposes. This increased transparency was
believed to provide a useful deterrent by complicating the efforts
of countries that try to cheat on their BWC obligations.
The monitoring regime contained in the draft BWC Protocol had four
basic elements:
- mandatory declarations of dual-capable activities and facilities
that could be easily diverted to develop or produce biological
weapons;
- random transparency visits to declared facilities, without specific
evidence of a treaty violation, to ensure that the observed activities
are consistent with the facility declaration;
- consultation procedures to clarify questions that might arise
from declarations, including the possibility of on-site visits;
and
- short-notice challenge
investigations, requested by a member state, of a suspect
facility, an alleged use of BW, or a suspicious outbreak of disease,
to address concerns about possible noncompliance.
The "golden rule" of multilateral arms control is that
the rights and obligations established by a treaty must apply equally
to all participating states. If the U.S. government wishes to inspect
biotechnology sites in countries of proliferation concern, such
as Russia and Iran,
it must be willing to accept the same types of monitoring activities
at plants on U.S. soil. Thus, a key challenge facing the BWC Protocol
negotiators in Geneva was to design an on-site inspection system
that was intrusive enough to give member states a reasonable level
of confidence in compliance, on the one hand, while reassuring private
biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies that their commercial
interests would be protected, on the other.
Progress in the BWC Protocol negotiations was hampered by major differences
between national positions and skepticism from private industry
groups toward the proposed regime. For example, in return for accepting
the compliance monitoring provisions, a number of developing countries
demanded expanded transfers of technology and liberalization of
trade to promote the peaceful uses of biotechnology.
In June 2001, in an effort to move the talks forward, Ad Hoc Group
chairman Tibor Tóth compiled a 210-page "composite text"
that attempted to finesse many of the outstanding issues. Under
the rules of the negotiations, the draft Protocol would have to
be adopted by a consensus of all 56 participating countries, any
one of which could block approval.
After the Bush administration took office in January 2001, a U.S.
government committee undertook a comprehensive review of the draft
BWC Protocol and identified 37 serious problems with the chairman's
text. In July 2001, the United States decided to reject the draft
Protocol and withdraw from the negotiations. U.S. officials concluded
that the proposed regime would subject U.S. biotechnology firms
to intrusive, burdensome inspections. Companies might be falsely
accused of treaty violations and could lose valuable trade secrets
to international competitors. In addition, U.S. government biodefense
programs would be at risk of foreign espionage by hostile countries
seeking to circumvent U.S. defenses. The United States also argued
that the BWC Protocol would also be ineffective in stopping would-be
proliferators from acquiring a BW arsenal.
Other participating countries countered that the draft Protocol,
while flawed, offered a reasonable balance between on-site inspections
intrusive enough to increase confidence in compliance and the protection
of legitimate national security and trade secrets. But the United
States, calling the draft Protocol "unfixable," withdrew
from further Ad Hoc Group deliberations.
Initially, some members of the Ad Hoc Group recommended approving
the BWC Protocol without the United States. But chairman Tóth
decided that it did not make sense to continue the negotiations
without the United States, which has one of the world's largest
biotechnology industries. Instead, the multilateral Protocol negotiations
were suspended, with the possibility of resuming them at a later
date when political conditions changed.
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Further Reading:
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Bioweapons Prevention Project, E.
Geissler, N.A. Sims and J. Borrie,
"30 Years of the BTWC: Looking Back, Looking Forward" |
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Acronym Institute,
BWC
Resources
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University of Bradford,
"Preventing
Biological Warfare: Strengthening the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention
(BTWC)" |
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NTI, Jenni Rissanen,
"The
Biological Weapons Convention" |
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CNS, Inventory,
BTWC |
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NTI, Jonathan Tucker, "The
BWC Compliance Protocol" |
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Kenneth Ward,
"The BWC
Protocol: Mandate for Failure" |
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Strategic Studies Institute, Milton
Leitenberg,
Assessing the Biological Weapons and Bioterrorism Threat |
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NTI,
Biological Warfare Terrorism Tutorial |
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CNS,
CBW
Resources Page |
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University of Bradford,
The
Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention |
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