Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The latest annual meeting of parties to the Biological Weapons Convention ended Friday in Geneva with a one-page report urging nations to adopt better measures to implement the treaty (see GSN, Nov. 11).

The final text calls on treaty participants to better implement the treaty and to strengthen security over sensitive pathogens, but offers no guidance on exactly how to achieve those goals.

“We’re very disappointed. [They get] an F for effort,” said Angela Woodward, legal researcher at VERTIC, a London arms control organization.

“It was a fairly minimalist outcome,” said Richard Lennane, a political affairs officer at the U.N. Department for Disarmament Affairs in Geneva.

Although some nations pushed for the meeting to recommend measures that treaty parties would find helpful in implementing the pact, no consensus was possible.

“Some countries were concerned about what they viewed was taking on additional obligations. But it was a storm in the teacup, because [the recommendations under consideration] would have involved taking on measures they’ve already agreed to,” Lennane said.

The Bush administration viewed the outcome positively.

“The meeting ended by reinforcing at a political level the need for states to pass criminal legislation and to provide security for dangerous pathogens,” said one U.S. official, requesting anonymity.

The official called the report a “relatively brief but very positive political statement.”

Three PointsIn the report, the parties agreed:

*         “to review, and where necessary, enact or update national legal, including regulatory and penal, measures which ensure effective implementation of the prohibition of the BTWC, and which enhance effective security of pathogens and toxins;”

*         on a “need for comprehensive and concrete national measures to secure pathogen collections and the control of their use for peaceful purposes;” and

*         to provide assistance to each other to accomplish these goals.

Diplomats and experts agree that 31 years after the treaty was opened for signature, a large number of the 151 parties have not adopted adequate legislation, including criminal laws, to implement treaty requirements effectively. 

In August, experts from 83 nations gathered in Geneva to exchange information on exactly what measures have been taken so far to implement the treaty’s ban against the research, development and possession of biological weapons. They also reported on the steps countries have taken to secure potentially dangerous research activities conducted for legitimate purposes.

Some nations, including South Africa and Germany, hoped that last week’s meeting would produce a final report that would summarize lessons from the experts meetings and would offer more specific recommendations that treaty parties could use to craft domestic legislation.

On the first day of the meeting, however, U.S. delegation leader Donald Mahley said the United States would oppose that idea, saying it would provide a distraction from taking action. Later, India’s representative said the meeting lacked the necessary mandate for negotiating recommendations (see GSN, Nov. 10).

The final report does include the uncollated documents exchanged at the August meeting, and experts said the annex could be useful as a reference for countries formulating implementing legislation. 

Critics say, though, that general guidance is needed on which examples should be heeded, and which avoided, so that implementation is strong and consistent around the world.

“People have been saying all along the measure of success is to what extent there are common understandings and effective action, and if you don’t get either of those you have to ask yourself how useful is it,” said Graham Pearson of the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom.

“The most that we’ve got is the fact that about a dozen states have offered to help others through bilaterals or regional workshops, or something like that, where they will provide practical assistance at a level that is aimed at the officials who will actually have to do all this stuff,” said Woodward.

A Limited Process

This year’s treaty meetings were negotiated in a compromise last year after the United States pressured the fifth treaty review conference into abandoning an effort to create a mechanism for verifying treaty compliance. 

U.S. officials said they opposed such a protocol, arguing it would be ineffective because biological weapons development is easy to conceal and because it might allow U.S. commercial biotechnology and government biological defense activities to be singled out for inspection, potentially compromising proprietary and secret information.

Faced with the lack of agreement on a verification protocol, treaty parties agreed to meet annually to discuss prearranged topics until the next review conference in 2006.

The compromise meetings were intended to be a “limiting process,” said meeting chairman Tibor Toth, the Hungarian diplomat who has led the effort to improve the treaty for the past nine years. 

Some observers criticized the narrow agenda for proscribing discussion on more important issues.

“The real problem is proliferation … how do you stop states’ programs,” said Malcom Dando, also with the University of Bradford.

Next to that problem, he said, the subjects discussed this year were “minor issues.”

Last week’s meeting was the final one chaired by Toth, who will probably be replaced by a South African diplomat under a new rotation system established last year.

Next year’s meetings are scheduled to address enhancing international capabilities for detecting, investigating and mitigating cases of biological weapons use or suspicious disease outbreaks. The discussions are expected to be more contentious than this year’s, said Woodward.

“Next year’s going to be all fun and games,” she said.