James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies
Combating the spread of weapons of mass destruction with training & analysis

CNS Research Story

The Sixth Review Conference of the Biological Weapons Convention: Success or Failure?

An Interview with Jonathan B. Tucker by CNS research assistant Peter Crail

04 January 2007

The Sixth Review Conference of the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) concluded on December 8, 2006, with the adoption of a consensus Final Declaration, ending a three-week meeting at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, during which two-thirds of the 156 states parties to the BWC reviewed the operation of the treaty and discussed ways to strengthen it. The Final Declaration contains a review of the articles in the BWC and an agreement to hold annual meetings of experts and states parties over the next four years to discuss, but not negotiate, a variety of topics related to the Convention. Most analysts termed the BWC Review Conference a modest success, particularly when compared with the 2005 Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which failed to reach consensus on a final declaration.

To discuss the outcome of the Sixth BWC Review Conference, CNS research assistant Peter Crail conducted an interview with Dr. Jonathan B. Tucker, a specialist on biological and chemical weapons issues in the CNS Washington office. Dr. Tucker is currently on leave as a Fulbright Scholar at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin.

1. For those who are not familiar with the Biological Weapons Convention, please briefly describe the treaty, the purpose of the review conferences, and the history of the treaty�s development to date.

The BWC, an international treaty banning the development, production, and stockpiling of biological weapons, was opened for signature in 1972 and entered into force in 1975. Although it embodies the norm against the use of disease as a weapon, the BWC is generally considered to be a weak instrument. Whereas the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention is more than 200 pages long and contains elaborate verification procedures, the BWC is only four pages long and lacks any formal measures for monitoring compliance or investigating countries suspected of cheating. Moreover, despite provisions in Article V for bilateral or multilateral consultations on noncompliance concerns and in Article VI for the referral of serious complaints to the UN Security Council, these measures have not been effective at addressing violations. The need for better compliance mechanisms became clear in the early 1990s, when defectors revealed that the former Soviet Union had conducted a vast, clandestine biological weapons program in flagrant violation of the BWC. At so-called review conferences, which are held every five years, the member states examine the operation of the treaty and discuss ways of strengthening it. For example, the review conferences in 1986 and 1991 adopted a set of politically binding Confidence-Building Measures (CBMs) to increase the transparency of facilities and activities relevant to the BWC. Under the CBMs, the member states are urged to file annual data declarations about their biodefense programs, high-containment labs, unusual outbreaks of disease, and so forth. Unfortunately, less than half of the member states have submitted CBM declarations on a regular basis. In 1995, the states parties to the BWC embarked on a more ambitious effort to strengthen the Convention by creating a new forum called the Ad Hoc Group to negotiate a legally binding �compliance protocol� containing provisions for declarations of treaty-relevant facilities, on-site visits to declared sites, challenge-type visits to undeclared sites of compliance concern, and field investigations of alleged biological weapons use. In 2001, after six and a half years of negotiations, the chairman of the Ad Hoc Group submitted a draft of the BWC Protocol to the member states for approval. At that point, the new U.S. administration of President George W. Bush decided to reject the draft treaty and withdraw from the talks. The Bush administration�s rationale was that the planned visits by international inspectors to biotechnology plants and biodefense research facilities would fail to detect violations, while revealing national security and confidential business information that could assist potential attackers and economic competitors. In the acrimony that followed the collapse of the BWC Protocol negotiations, the Fifth Review Conference convened in November-December 2001. Only hours before the conference ended, the U.S. delegation introduced a surprise proposal to terminate the mandate of the Ad Hoc Group. When other delegations objected to the U.S. demand, blocking consensus on a final declaration, it was agreed to suspend the proceedings for a year so that the chairman could engage in intensive informal consultations. When the conference resumed in November 2002, the member states managed to adopt a compromise formula in which the U.S. dropped its insistence on the formal termination of the Ad Hoc Group, which would remain suspended. The conference also agreed to establish a separate track involving a series of annual meetings to discuss issues relevant to the BWC. This so-called �new process� involved three sets of annual meetings of experts and states parties between 2003 and 2005. The �work program� for the intersessional meetings consisted of the following five topics: (1) national implementation of the BWC in national laws and regulations, (2) national measures to ensure the safe and secure storage and handling of dangerous pathogens and toxins, (3) international mechanisms to respond to the alleged use of biological weapons or suspicious outbreaks of disease, (4) strengthened procedures for infectious disease surveillance and response, and (5) codes of conduct for the life sciences. The United States insisted on limiting the intersessional agenda to these five items, excluding such topics as the verification of compliance, biodefense research, and international cooperation in the peaceful uses of biotechnology. Moreover, any recommendations for action that emerged from the annual meetings could not be addressed until the Sixth Review Conference in November-December 2006.

2. How did the outcome of the Sixth Review Conference of the BWC compare with your expectations prior to the conference?

Given the failure of the Fifth BWC Review Conference in 2001 to reach consensus on a final declaration, the antipathy of the Bush administration toward multilateral arms control, and the ongoing tensions over the Iranian nuclear program, my expectations for the Sixth Review Conference vacillated between pessimism and cautious optimism. On the one hand, I feared that another failed review conference would generate more acrimony and further marginalize the BWC. On the other hand, I hoped that the member states would overcome the repeated setbacks of the past decade and take some constructive steps to strengthen the Convention at a time when the threats of biological warfare and bioterrorism are widely perceived to be increasing. The actual outcome of the Sixth Review Conference was somewhere in between. Thanks in large part to the diplomatic skills of the chairman, Ambassador Masood Khan of Pakistan, the atmospherics of the conference were surprisingly good. One important accomplishment was to conduct a full review of the articles in the BWC for the first time in ten years. Such a review was not completed at the 2001 review conference because of the deadlock over the mandate of the Ad Hoc Group. Given the dramatic advances in the life sciences over the past decade, many of which have implications for the biological weapons threat, the comprehensive review of the treaty was quite important. With respect to new measures to strengthen the BWC, the Final Declaration includes a mandate for a new series of annual meetings of states parties prior to the next conference in 2011, the creation of a small Implementation Assistance Unit at the United Nations Office in Geneva, and a program to promote universal adherence to the Convention. Unfortunately, more ambitious proposals to strengthen the treaty were either not raised at all or failed to win consensus support. An interesting development during the Sixth Review Conference was the emergence of new informal coalitions of states. Several countries within the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) group distanced themselves from Iran, in part because of the ongoing controversy over the Iranian nuclear program. India, for example, moved to bolster its new strategic partnership with the United States by declining to support Tehran�s more hard-line positions, and Pakistan was silent because Ambassador Khan held the presidency of the conference. A similar informal grouping emerged within the Western Group. Calling themselves the JACKSNNZ, an acronym for Japan, Australia, Canada, (South) Korea, Switzerland, Norway, and New Zealand, this coalition of non-nuclear, non-European Union states advocated positions distinct from those of the EU and the United States. The emergence of moderate coalitions of states within the regional groups may improve the chances for compromise in the future.

3. What new understandings were generated by the Sixth Review Conference�s consideration of the Articles of the treaty?

In addition to reviewing the operation of the BWC, an important function of the review process is to develop �understandings� that clarify, strengthen, or extend the content of the various Articles so that the treaty can adapt to changing circumstances. For example, the basic prohibitions of the BWC are contained in Article I, which bans all activities with microbial and toxin agents except those involving �types and . . . quantities� that can be justified for �prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes.� This purpose-based approach�known to arms control specialists as the �general purpose criterion��is designed to make the BWC comprehensive in its coverage of pathogenic and toxin agents, regardless of their origin or method of production, and to enable the treaty to remain valid in the face of rapid scientific and technological change. One useful understanding reached by the Sixth Review Conference was to reaffirm that the general prohibitions in Article I of the BWC apply to �all scientific and technological developments in the life sciences and other fields of science relevant to the Convention.� This understanding applies, for example, to the newly developed capability to synthesize infectious viruses from off-the-shelf chemicals in the laboratory, a feat that has already been accomplished for poliovirus and the 1918 strain of influenza virus. The Sixth Review Conference also rejected an understanding proposed by Russia that would have weakened Article I. As it had during the BWC Protocol negotiations, the Russian delegation tried to introduce precise definitions of the types and quantities of biological and toxin agents that are allowed for non-prohibited purposes. This proposal was harmful because it would have narrowed the scope of the general purpose criterion and thereby made the BWC easier to circumvent. Fortunately, the Russian proposal failed to win much support and was ultimately dropped.

4. How does the framework for the next intersessional process compare to the process in 2003-2005 in terms of the meeting schedule, topics for discussion, and consideration of the outcomes?

One of the more positive outcomes of the Sixth Review Conference is that the member states agreed to renew the series of annual meetings of experts and BWC states parties that took place from 2003 to 2005. The intersessional meetings are generally considered to have been a success, even though the United States insisted on subjecting them to strict constraints: the meetings were limited to exchanges of information, could not discuss topics outside the agenda or that had been discussed in previous years, and had no authority to make decisions but could only issue recommendations for the Sixth Review Conference. Thus, although the participating countries exchanged a vast amount of information, they were unable to distill the data into a uniform set of guidelines or �best practices� for national implementation. Despite these limitations, the intersessional meetings served a useful function. Not only did they keep member states focused on issues related to the BWC, but the constructive atmosphere helped to mitigate much of the acrimony generated by the failures of the BWC Protocol negotiations and the Fifth Review Conference. Arguably, the intersessional process created a new spirit of pragmatism and lowered expectations that opened the way for the modest achievements of the Sixth Review Conference. Another contribution of the intersessional process was that it provided an opportunity to discuss a number of biosecurity governance initiatives that had emerged in various forums outside the BWC framework after the collapse of the Protocol negotiations in 2001. In addition, some of the topics addressed at the annual meetings, such as infectious disease surveillance and scientific codes of conduct, brought into the process new stakeholders that had not previously been involved in biological arms control, including international scientific societies, humanitarian organizations such the International Committee of the Red Cross, and international organizations such as the World Health Organization, the World Organization for Animal Health, the World Customs Organization, and the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol). The problem with the various ad hoc biosecurity initiatives outside the BWC framework is that they are poorly coordinated. At the beginning of the Sixth Review Conference, for example, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for the creation of a new international forum on the benefits and risks of advances in biotechnology. Because the relationship between the Annan initiative and the BWC is unclear, however, it risks becoming another parallel activity that detracts from efforts to strengthen the Convention. To improve the coherence of the various biosecurity initiatives, it is desirable to bring the BWC back into the center of international and national efforts to address biological threats to international security. The new intersessional work program for 2007-2010 adopted by the Sixth Review Conference reflects primarily a Western agenda in its focus on biosecurity and national implementation of the BWC. The first two sets of annual meetings, in 2007 and 2008, will address domestic implementing legislation and enforcement, regional and subregional cooperation in implementation, pathogen security measures, education of scientists, oversight of dual-use scientific research, and professional codes of conduct. In 2009, in a modest concession to developing countries, the meetings will focus on issues related to Article X of the BWC, which calls for international assistance and exchanges in the use of biological science and technology for peaceful purposes, as well as the promotion of national capacity-building in the detection and response to outbreaks of infectious disease. The fourth year (2010) will discuss the provision of assistance in case a state party is attacked with biological or toxin weapons, including improved national capabilities for disease surveillance, detection, and diagnosis. Although a number of topics addressed in 2003-2005 will return during the next round of intersessional meetings, the structure of the work program for 2007-2010 is somewhat different. The 2003-2005 work program lasted for three years and involved a one-week meeting of experts each year, followed by a two-week meeting of states parties. The new series, in contrast, will extend over four years and involve a one-week meeting of experts each year, followed by a one-week meeting of states parties. The one exception is 2010, when the meeting of states parties will be extended to two weeks to prepare for the next review conference. The decision to cut the length of the first three political meetings in half is unfortunate. For example, the critical issue of biosafety and biosecurity guidelines for the storage and handling of dangerous pathogens will not be addressed until 2008, and then only for a few days. Also regrettable is the fact that the United States rejected a proposal to give the annual meetings the power to make binding decisions. Instead, the intersessional process will once again be limited to exchanges of information, and any decisions will have to await the Seventh Review Conference in 2011. This pace of work is simply too slow to cope with the urgency of the biological weapons threat.

5. There were concerns that differences between the United States and Iran were going to threaten to block consensus. In the end, how much of an impact did these disagreements have on the Review Conference and its outcome?

The Sixth Review Conference got off to a tense start during the opening plenary session on November 20, 2006, when the U.S. head of delegation, Assistant Secretary of State John C. Rood, stated, �We believe that Iran probably has an offensive biological weapons program in violation of the BWC.� The Iranian ambassador responded by rejecting the U.S. allegation and pinning the blame for the failure of the BWC Protocol negotiations exclusively on the United States, when in fact several countries had worked to undermine the talks. This exchange did not bode well for the ensuing negotiations, but fortunately the differences between the United States and Iran did not end up blocking consensus. Although the U.S. delegation was willing to show a degree of flexibility on a number of issues, it also laid down some �red lines� that it refused to cross�particularly with respect to transfers of dual-use biotechnology equipment and materials that might facilitate the proliferation of offensive biowarfare capabilities. Iran, for its part, insisted that the effective implementation of Article X required the advanced industrial countries to transfer biotechnology equipment and materials to other states parties for peaceful purposes. This conflict ultimately prevented the adoption of an ambitious Action Plan on National Implementation of the BWC. After the United States had proposed the plan, Iran linked it to a second action plan on the implementation of Article X. When the United States balked at the Iranian proposal, Ambassador Khan tried to craft a compromise by integrating elements of the U.S. and Iranian initiatives into a single comprehensive action plan. Nevertheless, the United States continued to oppose several items in the comprehensive plan related to Article X, and Iran and other NAM countries, including Algeria, China, Cuba, and India, refused to accept the U.S.-proposed deletions. At this point, fearing a deadlock that might cause the entire meeting to fail, Ambassador Khan decided to stop work on the comprehensive action plan and focus instead on reaching consensus on the new intersessional work program. In other areas, Iran was isolated and received only tepid support from other members of the NAM. Moreover, despite their differences, U.S. and Iranian diplomats managed to work together during the endgame of the negotiations to resolve disagreements over some minor textual changes in the Final Declaration.

6. What impact will the failure to adopt the action plan on national implementation have on efforts to make progress on this component of the treaty?

The main provisions of the BWC relating to national implementation are contained in Article IV, which stipulates that each state party shall �take any necessary measures to prohibit and prevent� the development, production, stockpiling, and transfer of biological and toxin weapons within its territory and any other location under its jurisdiction or control. Although Article IV does not mention specific measures, it is generally understood to refer to legislation making the prohibitions of the BWC binding on the citizens of each state party and imposing penal sanctions for violations. Unfortunately, the lack of specificity in Article IV has resulted in a patchwork quilt of inconsistent national laws and regulations, and many parties to the BWC have yet to adopt suitable legislation. The Action Plan on National Implementation proposed by the United States and supported by the European Union countries included a checklist of items that all parties to the BWC would have been expected to complete. In particular, the action plan urged member states to designate a �national authority� to coordinate their domestic implementation, enact appropriate implementing legislation, undertake a review of their export control regulations, and submit periodic status reports. It is therefore regrettable that the action plan failed to win consensus support and was dropped from the Final Declaration. Nevertheless, UN Security Council Resolution 1540 of April 2004 overlaps with Article IV of the BWC by requiring all UN member states to adopt �appropriate� and �effective� national legislation to prevent the proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and related materials, especially for terrorist purposes. Since Resolution 1540 includes some measures to oversee national implementation and achieve a degree of accountability, it will fill the gap to some extent.

7. The issue of compliance with the BWC was important for several countries, in particular the United States. However, the Final Declaration did not include measures to strengthen compliance mechanisms. What are the prospects for addressing compliance in the next review process?

It was disappointing that the United States chose to highlight the issue of BWC compliance solely by �naming names� of countries it suspects of violations. During his plenary speech, Assistant Secretary Rood publicly accused two states parties (Iran and North Korea) and one signatory (Syria) of violating the BWC, yet the U.S. delegation refused to provide any evidence to back up these allegations. Worse, the United States did not propose any practical measures for increasing confidence in compliance or deterring violations. For example, much to the disappointment of the United Kingdom and Germany, the United States refused to discuss how to strengthen the existing authority of the UN Secretary-General to investigate cases of the alleged use of biological or chemical weapons. This mechanism has not been utilized since 1992 and is in urgent need of enhancement, such as requiring accused countries to cooperate with a field investigation and authorizing the use of powerful new analytical techniques developed over the past decade. Although the issues of verification and compliance are technically complex and politically sensitive, they will have to be addressed sooner or later. The fact that the Soviet Union was able to violate the BWC for 20 years without being held to account has severely weakened the credibility of the treaty. Unless some mechanism for verifying compliance, however imperfect, is developed and implemented, the BWC will never be able to function as an effective disarmament and nonproliferation tool.

8. What were the primary points of contention that will need to be worked out over the next five years?

The context of the BWC has been transformed in recent years by rapid advances in biological science and technology, including the laboratory synthesis of infectious viruses and the advent of �synthetic biology,� which may eventually make it possible to design and construct novel microorganisms. Such technologies are dual-use, meaning that they can be applied for peaceful or hostile purposes. Moreover, the dramatic advances in molecular biology have taken place simultaneously with the spread of advanced biotechnologies to several states in the developing world, including China, Cuba, India, Malaysia, Singapore, and South Africa. All of these countries view investments in biotechnology as a key element of their strategies for economic development and social welfare. There has always been an inherent tension in the BWC between the obligation in Article III not to assist proliferators in any way and the obligation in Article X to exchange biological science and technology for peaceful purposes. The rapid spread of biotechnology has heightened concerns in the United States and other Western countries about transferring cutting-edge capabilities to countries of proliferation concern. In addition to violating Article III, such transfers would undermine the effectiveness of the Australia Group, an informal forum of 39 countries that coordinate their national export controls on dual-use materials and equipment that can be diverted to the production of biological and chemical weapons. The north-south debate over Article X of the BWC will not be easily resolved. Continued globalization of the biotechnology industry will exacerbate tensions over technology transfer and export controls unless an effective means of biosecurity governance can be devised and implemented to ensure that such technologies are used only for peaceful purposes. At the same time, it is important to recognize that Article X is not limited to the sharing of biological science and technology. Global surveillance of infectious disease outbreaks coordinated by the World Health Organization and assistance with national implementation of the BWC are other important forms of peaceful cooperation under Article X that will directly benefit the developing world.

9. Considering the lack of an implementation body for the BWC until now, what are the gains from the creation of an Implementation Support Unit within the UN Department for Disarmament Affairs that will be located at the UN Office in Geneva?

The failed Action Plan on National Implementation would have included a number of specific tasks for the three-person Implementation Support Unit (ISU) and given it a clear reason for existence. Thus, the failure to adopt the action plan means that, at least initially, the mandate of the ISU is considerably more limited than originally envisaged. The unit�s primary roles will be to serve as the secretariat for the annual intersessional meetings and the next review conference, to assist member states with preparing national implementing legislation and the submission of annual CBM declarations, and to act as an information clearinghouse. Although some observers have described the ISU as a first step toward the creation of a true Technical Secretariat that would remedy the �institutional deficit� of the BWC, that outcome is by no means certain. Indeed, the next review conference in 2011 will review the operations of the ISU and decide if its mandate should be renewed.

10. It was widely recognized that participation in the CBM declarations process has been severely limited. How did the Review Conference attempt to address this apparent deficiency?

Unfortunately, the Sixth Review Conference did nothing to revise or strengthen the CBMs. The only measure that could be agreed was to facilitate national submissions by creating a password-protected web site with electronic declaration forms. Making it easier for countries to participate in the CBM process is a worthwhile step, but it does not constitute a substantive improvement. More ambitious proposals to revise or expand the CBMs were blocked by the United States and other states parties. In addition, the review conference rejected a suggestion to make all national CBM declarations publicly available, although individual countries may do so on their own initiative. The decision to keep the declarations confidential was a disappointment for non-governmental analysts, who had hoped that greater access to CBM data would enable them to track activities and facilities relevant to the BWC and thereby hold the member states more accountable. Washington�s main reason for opposing strengthened CBMs was that it might come under pressure to release more information about classified biodefense programs. At present, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and other agencies conduct secret biodefense research, including controversial �threat characterization� experiments with small amounts of weaponized biological agents that are designed to assess emerging threats and guide the development of countermeasures. Some non-governmental analysts believe that such activities cross the line of what is permitted by the BWC. Even if the research is technically legal, the program is non-transparent and fuels suspicions about U.S. intentions, encouraging other countries to hedge their bets by pursuing similar efforts. These policies are unlikely to change unless the next U.S. administration decides to cut back on the huge investment in biodefense research that has occurred since 9/11 and to promote greater transparency.

11. In your opinion, to what degree did the 2006 Review Conference strengthen the BWC, if at all?

Since the collapse in 2001 of efforts to negotiate a legally binding compliance protocol to buttress the BWC, the member states have become resigned to a �policy of small steps� with respect to strengthening the Convention. Even so, the fact that the modest accomplishments of the Sixth Review Conference were hailed as a �success� suggests how dysfunctional the biological arms control process has become. In the face of a grave threat to international security, the states parties to the BWC could agree only to keep talking for another five years without making decisions, and to create a three-person mini-secretariat with little real authority. There were also several missed opportunities, such as the failure to strengthen the CBMs or to discuss new approaches to monitoring compliance.

12. Do you expect that U.S. policy on biological arms control will change significantly after the next presidential election in November 2008?

I certainly hope that the next U.S. administration, which will take office in January 2009, will conduct a major review of biological arms control policy and develop fresh approaches to the problem of compliance. Yet even if the president-elect is more sympathetic to multilateral arms control, it is far from certain that the new administration will make a major policy shift and agree to negotiate a legally binding instrument to strengthen the BWC. Consider the most recent Democratic president. Although Bill Clinton gave rhetorical support to the BWC Protocol negotiations, he and other senior officials never intervened in the interagency policymaking process to resolve acrimonious disputes among the Departments of State, Defense, Energy, and others. As a result of this bureaucratic dysfunction, the U.S. government did not take clear positions in the Geneva talks and mainly sat on the sidelines. The lack of U.S. leadership contributed to the gradual watering down of the proposed verification regime over the course of the negotiations. Thus, although the Bush administration delivered the coup de gr�ce to the draft BWC Protocol in July 2001, its effectiveness was already in serious doubt. The failure of the BWC Protocol appears to have discredited the approach of negotiating a binding multilateral agreement to strengthen the Convention, at least for the near term. Not only do many policymakers believe that traditional arms control is too slow to keep up with the rapid advances in biological science and technology, but there is no political will to return to a process that consumed nearly seven years of effort with no ultimate result. For its part, the United States has been preoccupied since 9/11 and the anthrax letter attacks with the threat of bioterrorism rather than the state-level programs that are the primary focus of the BWC. Washington is also determined to preserve the export control regime for biotechnology materials and equipment coordinated by the Australia Group, which the NAM countries would presumably seek to weaken during multilateral talks. Furthermore, the United States has economic and security reasons for not wanting to accept intrusive international inspections of government and commercial facilities relevant to the BWC. First, the leading position of the U.S. biotechnology industry means that it has the most to lose in terms of valuable trade secrets. Second, the Bush administration�s huge investment in biodefense research has given the Departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security a strong interest in opposing on-site inspections of biodefense facilities, even if support for such measures were to exist in the State Department and the White House. Given these political realities, the current approach of creating a web of mutually reinforcing biosecurity measures at the individual, national, and international levels will probably prevail for the next several years. To better coordinate this complex array of ad hoc measures, it will be important to restore the BWC process to its former position at the heart of the regime. Over the longer term, however, it may eventually become politically and technically feasible to develop some type of formal verification system for the Convention.

13. What lessons can be learned for multilateral arms control negotiations from the pragmatic approach taken during the Sixth BWC Review Conference and its focus on limited achievable goals?

I have mixed feelings about the cautious, pragmatic approach taken by this review conference. Although it was clearly desirable to reach consensus on a final declaration, the actual set of accomplishments was meager and far from commensurate with the gravity and urgency of the biological weapons threat. The decision to hold another four years of intersessional discussions without the power to make decisions or take concrete action is particularly disappointing and suggests that the international community has failed to come to grips with the problem in a serious manner. Although the various ad hoc biosecurity initiatives will help to fill the policy vacuum to some extent, the lack of coordination will reduce their effectiveness. For example, if there are no common guidelines for securing dangerous pathogens under UN Security Council Resolution 1540, countries will develop a patchwork quilt of inconsistent regulations that limit the utility of this measure. Given the shortcomings of the current decentralized approach to biosecurity, I hope that the international community will begin to re-think the issues of verification and compliance. During the early 1990s, government experts from BWC member states held a series of meetings to examine possible verification measures for the Convention from a scientific and technical standpoint. This process, known as �Verification Experts� or VEREX, determined that combinations of different types of measures could enhance confidence in BWC compliance and deter violations, a finding that led to the decision to launch the Ad Hoc Group negotiations. Given the dramatic advances in microbial forensics and genetic analysis that have occurred over the past several years, it might be useful to initiate a second VEREX process to discuss whether advanced biotechnologies could open up new possibilities for biological verification in the future, while safeguarding proprietary and national security information unrelated to treaty compliance.

View previous Research Stories.

Author(s): Peter Crail Related Resources: Research Story Date Created: January 4, 2007 Date Updated: January 4, 2007