In Good Health?

ABSTRACT

Since the 1990s, the group of stakeholders working to combat biological weapons (BW) proliferation has broadened to include new actors who have not traditionally focused on security issues, including organizations from the public health sector, researchers in the life sciences, and the biosafety community. This has had significant benefits for the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) and the arms control establishment more broadly. However, the BWC's agenda has become increasingly dominated by issues of international health and global health security. By focusing solely on response strategies, the United States and other interested parties risk losing sight of other important elements of a counter-BW strategy, including deterrence and prevention. Focusing on public health-related issues to the exclusion of more traditional security matters puts the nonproliferation regime at risk, because it limits the amount of time that stakeholders have available to grapple with the critical questions facing the BWC and the biological weapons nonproliferation establishment—questions that must be answered if the regime is to survive.

KEYWORDS:

• Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention
• biosafety
• biosecurity
• deterrence
• biological weapons nonproliferation

Notes

1. Christopher Buck, “Statement to the Meeting of States Parties to the Biological Weapons Convention by the United States of America,” December 9, 2013, <www.unog.ch/80256EDD006B8954/%28httpAssets%29/ADA3FF6EADFB7FA3C1257C3C006B3B38/$file/United+States+of+America.pdf>, emphasis in the original.

2. “BWC Meeting of States Parties,” transcription of English translation of statement by the delegation of Mexico, December 9, 2013, <www.unog.ch/80256EDD006B8954/%28httpAssets%29/93A09AA7399FA348C1257C7100567304/$file/BWC_MSP_2013-Statement-131209-Mexico-Transcript.pdf>.

3. Christian Enemark, “The role of the Biological Weapons Convention in disease surveillance and response,” Health Policy and Planning 25 (November 2010), pp. 486–94, <http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/25/6/486.full>.

4. Brad Spellberg, “Dr. William H. Stewart: Mistaken or Maligned?” Clinical Infectious Diseases 47, (July 2008), p. 294, <http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/47/2/294.1.full>.

5. Kristin Harper and George Armelagos, “The Changing Disease-Scape in the Third Epidemiological Transition,” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 7 (February 2010) pp. 675–97, <www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2872288/>.

6. Enemark, “The role of the Biological Weapons Convention.”

7. Simon Rushton, “AIDS and international security in the United Nations System,” Health Policy and Planning 25 (November 2010), pp. 495–504, <http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/25/6/495.full>.

8. Mark Schneider and Michael Moodie, “The Destabilizing Impacts of HIV/AIDS,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, Report of CSIS Task Force on HIV/AIDS, May 2002, <http://csis.org/files/media/csis/pubs/0205_destimp.pdf>.

9. Harley Feldbaum, “U.S. Global Health and National Security Policy,” Report of the CSIS Global Health Policy Center, Center for Strategic and International Studies, April 2009, <http://csis.org/files/media/csis/pubs/090420_feldbaum_usglobalhealth.pdf>.

10. David P. Fidler, “Biological Weapons and Public Health: Problems in the Theory and Practice of the Securitization of Public Health within the Biological Weapons Convention,” in “What place should public health issues have in bioweapons control forums?: Civil society preparations for the 7th BWC Review Conference 2011,” BioWeapons Prevention Project, March 25, 2011, <www.bwpp.org/revcon-securitization.html>.

11. Alexander Kelle, “Securitization of International Public Health: Implications for Global Health Governance and the Biological Weapons Prohibition Regime,” Global Governance 13 (April–June 2007), pp. 217–18.

12. Prepared statement before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 104th Cong., 1st sess., May 11, 1995, quoted in Amy Stimson, “Ataxia: The Chemical and Biological Terrorism Threat and the US Response,” Henry L. Stimson Center, Stimson Report 35 (October 2000), <www.stimson.org/images/uploads/research-pdfs/atxchapter3.pdf>.

13. Michael Moodie, quoted in Lois Ember, “Bioterrorism: Combating the Threat,” Chemical & Engineering News 77 (July 5, 1999) pp. 8–17, <http://pubs.acs.org/cen/hotarticles/cenear/990705/7727newfocus.html>.

14. Center for Strategic and International Studies, “The Biological Weapons Threat and Nonproliferation Options,” CSIS Report, November 2006, <http://csis.org/files/media/csis/pubs/061129_biosurvey.pdf>.

15. Kelle, “Securitization of International Public Health.”

16. Caitríona McLeish, “Status quo or evolution: What next for the intersessional process of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention?” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 67 (May/June 2011), <http://thebulletin.org/2011/mayjune/status-quo-or-evolution-what-next-intersessional-process-biological-and-toxin-weapons>.

17. Ibid.

18. Jonathan B. Tucker, “Putting Teeth in the Biological Weapons Convention,” Issues in Science and Technology 18 (2002), <http://issues.org/18-3/tucker/>.

19. Simon Rushton, “The BWC and the upsides and downsides of securitizing health,” in “What place should public health issues have in bioweapons control forums?: Civil society preparations for the 7th BWC Review Conference 2011,” BioWeapons Prevention Project, March 25, 2011, <www.bwpp.org/revcon-securitization.html>.

20. “Co-chairs’ Summary,” International Workshop on Strengthening International Efforts to Prevent the Proliferation of Biological Weapons: The Role of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, November 6, 2010, <www.unog.ch/80256EDD006B8954/(httpAssets/2150469CC970F39AC12577D700543C6E/$file/Co-Chairs%20Summary%20-%20RL%20master.doc>.

21. Jonathan Tucker, “Addressing the Spectrum of Biological Risks: A Policy Agenda for the United States,” Testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade, “National Strategy for Countering Biological Threats: Diplomacy and International Programs,” 111th Cong., 2nd sess., March 18, 2010, <http://cns.miis.edu/testimony/pdfs/tucker_jonathan_b_100318.pdf>.

22. “Co-chairs’ Summary.”

23. Jonathan Tucker, “Is Washington Prepared to Lead at the BWC Review Conference?” Arms Control Today, January/February 2011, <www.armscontrol.org/act/2011_01-02/Tucker>.

24. Enemark, “The role of the Biological Weapons Convention.”

25. Ibid.

26. Amanda Moodie and Michael Moodie, “Alternative Narratives for Arms Control: Bringing Together Old and New,” Nonproliferation Review 17 (June 2010), <www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10736700.2010.485430#.U7sqDkBifPY>.

27. The term “medicalization of security” has also been coined by Stefan Elbe; he uses it to suggest that security is now seen largely in medical terms and that the problems of security and insecurity in international relations are now understood, as least in part, as medical problems. See Stefan Elbe, Security and Global Health: Towards the Medicalization of Insecurity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010). In the context of this analysis, the term is being used somewhat differently.

28. Rupert Smith, The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007), p. 6.

29. Michael Moodie, “Conflict Trends in the 21^st Century,” Joint Forces Quarterly 53 (2009), <www.hsdl.org/?view&did=11296>.

30. Brian Finlay, “Proliferation Prevention: Bridging the Security/Development Divide in the Global South,” Global Studies Review 7 (Fall 2011), <www.globality-gmu.net/archives/2746>.

31. Brian Finlay and Johan Bergenäs, “Courting the Global South with ‘Dual-Benefit’ Nonproliferation Engagement,” Nonproliferation Review 20 (March 2013), p. 166.