Verification Of The Biological And Toxin Weapons Convention

In the summer of 1997 some twelve lecturers and sixty students met for ten days in Budapest Hungary in a NATO Advanced Studies Institute (ASI) to consider "New Scientific and Technical Aspects of Verification of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention". In many ways the meeting was ahead of its time. The Ad Hoc Group was only then about to move to the discussion of a rolling text of the Protocol to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC). It had been mandated to negotiate the Protocol by the Special Conference which had considered the work of the VEREX process that had taken place following the 1991 Third Review Conference of the Convention. Now, in late 1999, after much further negotiation of the text of the Protocol we are moving towards the endgame of the negotiations. Nevertheless, the scientific and technical issues discussed in the ASI in Hungary continue to be of direct relevance to the verification of the Convention and will continue to be relevant as the eventual Protocol moves from agreement through a Preparatory Commission stage and into full implementation over the next several years. The papers in this volume are much as they were presented in Budapest both in order of presentation and in content. They were designed by the ASI co-directors, Professor Graham Pearson and Ambassador Tibor Toth (Chairman of the Ad Hoc Group) to provide an integrated overview and in-depth analysis of the issues at stake.

The evolution of the disarmament regime of the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) is described from 1980, when the first BTWC Review Conference was held, until 1998. The author analyses the results of SIPRI's first four review Conferences.

Incidents of bioterrorism and biowarfare are likely to recur, leading to increased public concern and government action. The deficiencies of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) are in urgent need of attention: the BTWC is the central international agreement to prevent the proliferation of biological warfare programmes. Uniquely, this book is written by diplomats involved in the decade-long effort (1991-2001) in which State Parties to the BTWC tried to agree a Protocol to the Convention with legally binding measures to strengthen its effectiveness, and academics concerned with the negotiations. Just before negotiations foundered, when the Chairman's proposed text was virtually complete, the problems and proposed solutions were examined thoroughly, leading to this book. The book is wide-ranging in its review of the history of biological warfare, the reasons why the current biological revolution is of such concern, and the main features of the BTWC itself. The core of the book examines the key elements of the proposed protocol - declarations, visits, challenge-type investigations, and enhanced international cooperation - and the implications for government, industry and biodefence, giving us all a better understanding of what still remains to be done to avert a biowarfare catastrophe.

The 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) currently lacks procedures for verifying compliance of signatories; this shortcoming, in combination with advances in biotechnology and a changing global security environment have resulted in the continued proliferation of biological and toxin weapons (BTW). Efforts to strengthen the BWC with an inspection protocol have been hampered by disagreement over intrusive inspection and the threat it poses to national security and industrial competitiveness. Debate within the United States, however, fails to consider the impact of U.S. involvement in the inspection regime on the behavior of signatories such as China which are suspected to be violating the treaty. Michael Swaine's model of Chinese government decision making is used to evaluate reactions to three U.S. policies toward BWC inspections. Research suggests that responsibility for BWC verification overlaps institutional interests and that U.S. participation in the protocol may have a positive effect in the Chinese cost-benefit calculation of accepting inspections. Findings suggest that one way of encouraging nations such as China in nonproliferation efforts may be to push forward and accept intrusive inspections, with an understanding of their limitations and costs.

Volume 12 in the SIPRI Chemical & Biological Warfare Studies series will identify and develop suggestions for verification measures for the BWC, and their possible dual function for verification and confidence-building will also be explored in contributions by ten leading experts in the field number 12 in the will identify and develop suggestions for verification.

The Essays In This Volume Address Issues Like Anxieties In The Biotech Industry That A Verification Regime Would Compromise Secrecy, Wheter The Verification Arrangements In The Chemical Weapons Convention Could Be Extended To The Btwc, And The Imperative For States To Enact Domestic Ligislation For Implementing The Btwc.