Global Security Newswire

Member nations to the Biological Weapons Convention are meeting this week in Geneva, the United Nations announced (see GSN, Aug. 18).

The annual states parties session began yesterday and is scheduled to end Friday; it follows discussions that took place at an experts meeting in August. Participants will seek to develop a report that promotes movement in two particular areas:

"National, regional and international measures to improve biosafety and biosecurity, including laboratory safety and security of pathogens and toxins"; and

"Oversight, education, awareness raising and adoption and/or development of codes of conduct with the aim of preventing misuse in the context of advances in bioscience and biotechnology research with the potential of use for purposes prohibited by the convention" (U.N. release I, Nov. 27).

"You meet at the halfway point of the intersessional work program, in advance of the next review conference in 2011. I am encouraged to know that the program has been inclusive and productive, and that you have developed understandings on improving national implementation and regional cooperation," U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement to the meeting. "I urge you to maintain that spirit this week as you continue work on biosafety, biosecurity, oversight, education and awareness-raising, as well as next year, when you address capacity building in disease surveillance, detection, diagnosis and containment. These efforts are crucially important in strengthening barriers against biological weapons and bioterrorism, and in addressing other threats to public health, agriculture, economic development and the environment.

He added: "I also urge you to begin thinking about additional steps that could be taken at the next review conference. You might consider how to increase membership, and how to further develop the implementation support unit. You might also explore the potential for further multilateral cooperation in the fields of verification, compliance and enforcement of the convention (U.N. release II, Dec. 1).

The Biological Weapons Convention entered into force in 1975 and today has 162 member nations. It bans the development, manufacture and possession of weapons that involve biological agents such as anthrax, smallpox or plague (U.N. release I).