ENSURING THE FUTURE OF THE BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS CONVENTION

Abstract

This introductory article first provides an overview of key historical developments pertaining to the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), exposing the roots of the assertion that the treaty is unverifiable. The article also reviews the factors that have changed since the BWC's negotiation, including those that loom over the BWC's effective implementation today, with special emphasis on the challenges posed by the advancement and global diffusion of life sciences know-how, technologies, equipment, and capabilities. The narrative concludes with a description of the methodology behind this special issue of the Nonproliferation Review, introducing the contributing authors and the common questions they address in the context of their topics.

Keywords:

• Biological Weapons Convention
• biorisk management
• life sciences
• verification

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Along with outside reviewers Gustav Lindström and Marc Finaud, both of the Geneva Center for Security Policy, all authors reviewed and commented on one another's work during an April 2011 two-day workshop in Geneva sponsored by the European Union Institute for Security Studies. We are grateful to all participants for devoting their valuable time to this project and for sharing their knowledge and insights.

Notes

1. The Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction opened for signature on April 10, 1972 and entered into force on March 26, 1975. As of August 2011, 164 states have joined the BWC, 13 have signed, and 18 states are not members to the BWC regime. Previous review conferences were held in 1980, 1986, 1991, 1996, 2001–2002, and 2006. For more information, see UN Office at Geneva, “Disarmament: The Biological Weapons Convention,” undated, <www.unog.ch/80256EE600585943/(httpPages)/04FBBDD6315AC720C1257180004B1B2F?OpenDocument>.

2. “UK Working Paper on Microbiological Warfare,” ENDC/231, para. 3, August 8, 1968, reproduced in Jozef Goldblatt, The Problem of Chemical and Biological Warfare, Volume IV, CB Disarmament Negotiations, 1920–1970 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1971), pp. 255–56.

3. For more on the International Atomic Energy Agency's safeguards inspections, see International Atomic Energy Agency, Department of Safeguards, <www.iaea.org/OurWork/SV/Safeguards>.

4. “Final Document of the Tenth Special Session of the General Assembly,” in Resolutions and Decisions Adopted by the General Assembly during its Tenth Special Session, 23 May–30 June 1978 (New York: United Nations, 1978), paras. 31 and 92, pp. 6 and 10.

5. The CWC prohibits the development, production, stockpiling, and use of poison gas. According to the treaty's inspectorate, as of mid-August 2011, 81 of the treaty's 188 members have hosted more than 4,165 inspections at chemical weapons–related and industrial sites. For more information about this treaty's verification provisions and implementation, see Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, <www.opcw.org>.

6. In testimony in support of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, US Ambassador Paul Nitze stated: “What do we mean by effective verification? We mean that we want to be sure that if the other side moves beyond the limits of the treaty in any military significant way, we would be able to detect such violations in time to respond effectively and thereby deny the other side the benefit of the violation.” Paul Nitze, prepared statement before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, “The Treaty between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Elimination of Their Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles: Part 1,” 100th Cong., 2nd sess., January 28, 1988, p. 417.

7. Jonathan B. Tucker and Erin R. Mahan, “President Nixon's Decision to Renounce the US Offensive Biological Weapons Program,” Case Study Series, no. 1, Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction, National Defense University, Washington, DC, October 2009, pp. 7–8.

8. For the security guarantees, see Article VII of the BWC and Article X of the Chemical Weapons Convention. See also the Verification Annex of the Chemical Weapons Convention.

9. Keith Krause, “Leashing the Dogs of War: Arms Control from Sovereignty to Govern Mentality,” Contemporary Security Policy 32 (April 2011), p. 24.

10. Among the nongovernmental organizations that closely monitor activities pertinent to the BWC are the Harvard-Sussex Project <www.sussex.ac.uk/Units/spru/hsp>, the BioWeapons Prevention Project <www.bwpp.org>, and the Department of Peace Studies at Bradford University, <www.brad.ac.uk/acad/sbtwc>. In addition to trade publications, a variety of professional journals cover developments in the life sciences, including Science, Bioinformatics, Metabolomics, Briefings in Functional Genomics and Proteomics, Genomics, and International Journal of Mass Spectrometry.

11. National Intelligence Council, “Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World,” Washington, DC, pp. 47–48, <www.dni.gov/nic/PDF_2025/2025_Global_Trends_Final_Report.pdf>.

12. J. Tian, H. Gong et al., “Accurate Multiplex Gene Synthesis from Programmable DNA Microchips,” Nature 432 (December 23–30, 2004), pp. 1050–54; “Symposium on Opportunities and Challenges in the Emerging Field of Synthetic Biology: Synthesis Report,” Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the Royal Society, 2010, p. 35, <www.oecd.org/dataoecd/23/49/45144066.pdf>.

13. J. Cello, A.V. Paul, and E. Wimmer, “Chemical Synthesis of Poliovirus cDNA: Generation of Infectious Virus in the Absence of Natural Template,” Science 297 (August 9, 2002); Terence M. Tumpey et al., “Characterization of the Reconstructed 1918 Spanish Influenza Pandemic Virus,” Science 310 (October 7, 2005), pp. 77–80; Jeffrey K. Tautenberger et al., “Characterization of the 1918 Influenza Virus Polymerase Genes,” Nature 437 (October 6, 2005), pp. 889–93; Sven Enterlein et al., “Rescue of Recombinant Marburg Virus from cDNA Is Dependent on Nucleocapsid Protein VP30,” Journal of Virology 80 (January 2006), pp. 1038–43; Michelle M. Becker et al., “Synthetic Recombinant Bat SARS-like Coronavirus Is Infectious in Cultured Cells and in Mice,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105 (November 26, 2008), pp. 19944–49; Daniel G. Gibson et al., “Creation of a Bacterial Cell Controlled by a Chemically Synthesized Genome,” Science 328 (July 2, 2010), pp. 52–56.

14. Committee on Advances in Technology and the Prevention of Their Application to Next Generation Biowarfare Threats, Globalization, Biosecurity, and the Future of the Life Sciences (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2006), pp. 84–97, 112–19.

15. Jeanne Whalen, “In Attics and in Closets, ‘Biohackers’ Discover Their Inner Frankenstein: Using Mail-Order DNA and Iguana Heaters, Hobbyists Brew New Life Forms; Is It Risky?” Wall Street Journal, May 12, 2009, p. 1; Chris Ayres, “Why Frankenstein's Monster Might Come to Life in a Garage; United States,” The Times (London), December 27, 2008, p. 55. See also Biotechnology Industry Organization, < www.bio.org>.

16. Government Accountability Office, “High-Containment Biosafety Laboratories: Preliminary Observations on the Oversight of the Proliferation of BSL-3 and BSL-4 Laboratories in the United States,” GAO-08-108T, October 4, 2007, pp. 9–10; and World Health Organization, “Biosafety and Biosecurity in Health Laboratories,” report of the regional workshop, Pune, India, July 8–11, 2008, p. 8.

17. Ronald Jackson et al., “Expression of Mouse Interleukin-4 by a Recombinant Ectromelia Virus Suppresses Cytolytic Lymphocyte Responses and Overcomes Genetic Resistance to Mousepox,” Journal of Virology 75 (February 2001), pp. 1205–10; Rachel Nowak, “Disaster in the Making: An Engineered Mousepox Virus Leaves Us One Step Away from the Ultimate Bioweapon,” New Scientist 169 (January 13, 2001), pp. 4–5. Another controversial experiment is discussed in Ariella M. Rosengard et al., “Variola Virus Immune Evasion Design: Expression of a Highly Efficient Inhibitor of Human Complement,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 99 (June 25, 2002), pp. 8808–13.

18. Globalization, Biosecurity, and the Future of the Life Sciences, pp. 139–212, 214; National Research Council, Biotechnology Research in an Age of Terrorism (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2004).

19. Matthew Meselson, “Averting the Hostile Exploitation of Biotechnology,” CBW Conventions Bulletin 48 (June 2000), p. 16. See also British Medical Association Board of Science and British Medical Association Science and Education Department, The Use of Drugs as Weapons: The Concerns and Responsibilities of Healthcare Professionals (London: British Medical Association, May 2007), p. 1. On the implications of the revolution in the life sciences for the bioweapons threat, see Malcolm Dando, Biological Warfare in the 21st Century (London: Brassey's, 1994); British Medical Association, Biotechnology, Weapons and Humanity II (London: Harwood Academic, 2004); David G. Victor and C. Ford Runge, “Farming the Genetic Frontier,” Foreign Affairs 81 (May/June 2002), pp. 107–21; Jonathan B. Tucker and Craig Hooper, “Protein Engineering: Security Implications,” EMBO Reports 7 (July 2006), pp. S14–S17; Mark Wheelis, “Biotechnology and Biochemical Weapons,” Nonproliferation Review 9 (Spring 2002), pp. 48–53, <cns.miis.edu/npr/pdfs/91whee.pdf> ; Stephen M. Block, “Biological Threats Enabled by Molecular Biology,” in Sidney D. Drell, Abraham D. Sofaer, and George D. Wilson, eds., The New Terror: Facing the Threat of Biological and Chemical Weapons (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1999), pp. 39–75; Richard Danzig, Catastrophic Bioterrorism: What Is to Be Done? (Blue Ridge Summit, PA: Bernan Press, 2003); Jonathan B. Tucker and Raymond A. Zilinskas, “The Promise and Perils of Synthetic Biology,” The New Atlantis 12 (Spring 2006), pp. 25–45, <www.thenewatlantis.com/docLib/TNA12-TuckerZilinskas.pdf>; and Margaret Kosal, Nanotechnology for Chemical and Biological Defense (New York: Springer, 2009), pp. 89–98.

20. US Ambassador Donald Mahley, “Statement by the United States to the Ad Hoc Group of Biological Weapons Convention States Parties,” Geneva, July 25, 2001; Mike Allen, “US Seeks to Stiffen Pact on Germ War; Pact's Enforcement Mechanism Faulted,” Washington Post, October 17, 2001, p. A21; Mike Allen and Steve Mufson, “US Scuttles Germ War Conference; Move Stuns European Allies,” Washington Post, December 8, 2001, p. A1. See also the remarks of Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control Stephen Rademaker in Wendy Lubetkin, “US Welcomes Biological Weapons Convention Work Plan: Rademaker Describes BWC Program as ‘Constructive and Realistic,’” State Department, International Information Programs, November 15, 2002.