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The Reconvened BWC Fifth Review Conference: Agreement on a New
Meeting
When the BWC Fifth
Review Conference reconvened with 94 participating states parties on
November 11, 2002, Chairman Tibor Tóth offered a new proposal
designed to close the gap between the United States and other BWC
members. Tóth stated that the proposal was non-negotiable: either
the parties adopted it “as is” or rejected it and halted all
collective work on the BWC until the 2006 Review Conference. To
avoid a confrontation with the United States, Tóth did not revive
the Ad Hoc Group or the BWC Protocol; instead he presented a plan
for annual one-week meetings on specific topics to be held each year
before the Sixth Review Conference in 2006. After four days of
intense discussions, the states parties unanimously adopted Tóth’s
proposal. They agreed to hold three annual meetings, preceded by
meetings of experts, to “discuss and promote common understanding
and effective action” on listed topics.
The BWC "New Process" Meetings
From November
10-14, 2003, 92 BWC member states, along with several non-member
states and non-governmental organizations, met in Geneva to discuss
(1) the adoption of national measures, including criminal laws,
to implement the prohibitions set forth in the BWC and (2) national
mechanisms to maintain the security and oversight of pathogens. This
meeting was preceded by a preparatory meeting of experts attended by
more than 400 individuals from 83 countries. At the November meeting, several states
contended that the expert group information should be refined into a
set of voluntary guidelines for criminal laws and biosecurity
regulations, which could be used to help member states implement the
BWC uniformly. In
their final report on the meeting, the states parties agreed:
1. To review, and
where necessary, enact or update national legal measures to ensure
effective implementation of the BWC prohibitions and to enhance
effective security of pathogens and toxins.
2. States parties
may wish to provide legal and technical help to others who request
it in drafting and/or expanding their own legislation and controls
in the areas of national implementation and biosecurity.
3. There is a need
for comprehensive and concrete national measures to secure pathogen
collections and control their use for peaceful purposes. Measures
should be adopted which will ensure that such dangerous materials
are not accessible to persons who might misuse them.
While the participating states agreed on the importance of national
measures to implement the BWC, they did little beyond urging members
to adopt such legislation. They did not produce recommendations or
guidelines for drafting such laws and regulations.
In December 2004,
BWC parties held an annual meeting in Geneva and considered: (1) ways to improve international
capabilities for investigating and mitigating alleged us of
biological weapons or suspicious outbreaks of disease, and (2) ways
to strengthen national and international efforts to detect and
combat infectious diseases in humans, plants, and animals. While the
parties issued a
Possible Outcome Paper agreeing on
the value of improving disease surveillance and developing national
measures, they made no commitments or recommendations. The parties
agreed on the value of supporting existing networks of international
organizations charged with discovering and combating infections
diseases; improving national and regional disease surveillance
capabilities; and working to improve communications between all
these organizations. They also agreed on the value of states
developing their own BW response and mitigation capacities.
At the
third
annual meeting in June 2005, experts discussed the development and adoption of codes
of conduct for scientists. The experts agreed that codes of
conduct should support the central tenets of the BWC, while
maintaining a balance between scientific freedom and the need to
prevent the misuse of science for biological weapons purposes. In
their December 2005 meeting, 87 states-parties to the BWC agreed to
encourage voluntary codes of conduct for scientists. However, they
recognized that developing such guidelines would be complicated
given all of the fields relevant to the BWC, such as microbiology,
zoology, and genetic engineering.
The Sixth Review Conference
The BWC Sixth Review
Conference met in Geneva, Switzerland, from November 20-December 8,
2006. The conference, with 103 of the BWC's 156 states parties participating, adopted
by consensus a
Final Document,
which reviewed the operation of the BWC. The parties endorsed the final documents from the annual
meetings of states parties from 2003-2005, and agreed to continue
holding annual meetings of experts and states parties over the next
four years to discuss a range of topics prior to the Seventh
Review Conference in 2011. They also established an
implementation support unit, and agreed to receive and distribute
confidence building measures to/from parties. Most analysts consider
the conference only a modest success, however, because it did not resolve the controversial issues
of national implementation measures, verification, and compliance.
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Further Reading:
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The Nonproliferation Review, Jonathan Tucker,
"The
BWC New Process: A Preliminary Assessment" |
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University of Bradford,
The
Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention |
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Arms Control Today,
Nicholas Sims,
"Back to Basics: Steering Constructive Evolution of the BWC" |
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Disarmament Diplomacy, Jonathan Tucker,
"Strengthening
the BWC: A Way Forward" |
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BioWeapons Prevention Project
website |
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UN Press Release,
"Biological Weapons Convention Expert Meeting Concludes" |
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Disarmament Diplomacy,
Daniel Feakes,
"Practical Steps for Accelerating BWC
Universality" |
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Disarmament Diplomacy,
Nicholas Sims,
"Toward the BWC Review Conference: Diplomacy Still in the Doldrums" |
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UN Office of Geneva,
The Sixth Review Conference of the Biological Weapons Convention |
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CNS,
"The Sixth Conference of the Biological Weapons Convention: Success or
Failure?" (Interview with Jonathan Tucker) |
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