Reflections on the 2001 BWC Protocol and the verification challenge

ABSTRACT

The history of the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) shows that efforts to make its compliance provisions more effective have invariably fallen short. The high point of these efforts came during the 1995–2001 verification-protocol negotiations in the Ad Hoc Group (AHG). Despite solid preparation by the 1992–93 verification experts’ meetings, the AHG failed to reach agreement on a Protocol. The challenges of devising effective verification measures were then, and remain now, considerable: a combination of complex scientific, technological, diplomatic, and legal obstacles proved insurmountable. Despite the passage of time, some states parties continue to call for the AHG’s resumption, but many of those doing so have forgotten the challenges and that their own positions in the 1990s were instrumental in the AHG’s failure. This does not augur well for future efforts to strengthen the BWC at its Ninth Review Conference.

KEYWORDS:

• Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention
• verification
• compliance
• multilateral diplomacy

Notes

1 This article is a much-expanded version of a UK national Working Paper submitted to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention Meeting of Experts 4, BWC/MSP/2-19/MX.5/WP.1, August 6–7, 2019.

2 See John R. Walker, British Nuclear Weapons and the Test Ban 1954­­–1973: Britain, the United States, Weapons Policies and Nuclear Testing: Tension and Contradictions (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2010).

3 The National Archives, Kew, FCO 10/181, folio 84, R. Hope-Jones, Atomic Energy and Disarmament Department to Mr O’Neill, The Next Steps in Disarmament, June 10, 1968.

4 United Kingdom, Working Paper on Microbiological Warfare, ENDC/231, Geneva, 6 August 1969.

5 ENDC/225, Draft Convention by the United Kingdom, Dated 10 July, for the Prohibition of Biological Methods of Warfare and Accompanying Draft Security Council Resolution, July 10, 1969.

6 CCD/325, 30 March 1971 Draft Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) Weapons and Toxins and on their Destruction.

7 See CCC/286, United States of America, Working Papers on Toxins, April 21, 1970; CCD/333, Sweden Working Paper on Aspects of the Definition of “Toxins,” July 6, 1971. The United Kingdom subsequently modified its draft to include toxins: see Revised Draft Convention by the United Kingdom Dated 18 August for the Prohibition of Biological Methods of Warfare and Accompanying Draft Security Council Resolution, CCD/225 Rev 1 1970.

8 CCD/356, Draft Convention Dated 28 September by Bulgaria, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Italy, Mongolia, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, USSR, UK and USA on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction, September 2, 1971.

9 See Milton Leitenberg and Raymond A. Zilinskas, The Soviet Biological Weapons Program (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012); Amy Smithson, Germ Gambits: The Bioweapons Dilemma, Iraq and Beyond (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011). See also David C. Kelly, “The Trilateral Agreement: Lessons for Biological Weapons Verification,” in Trevor Findlay and Oliver Meier, eds., VERTIC, Verification Yearbook 2002 (London: VERTIC, 2003), pp. 93–109; Graham S. Pearson, The Search for Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction: Inspection, Verification and Non-proliferation (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).

10 BWC/CONF.III/23 Part II Third Review Conference of the Parties to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development. Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction (Geneva, 9–27 September 1991) Final Document, p. 16, <https://docs-library.unoda.org/Biological_Weapons_Convention_-_Third_Review_Conference_(1991)/BWC_CONF.III_23.pdf>.

11 BWC/CONF.III/VEREX/9, Ad Hoc Group of Governmental Experts to Identify and Examine Potential Verification Measures from a Scientific and Technical Standpoint, Report, Geneva, 1993, p. 8.

12 BWC/SPCONF/1, Special Conference of the States Parties to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development. Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction (Geneva, 19–30 September 1994) Final Report Part II, p. 10, <https://docs-library.unoda.org/Biological_Weapons_Convention_-_Special_Conference__(1994)/BWC_SPCONF_01.pdf>.

13 Jez Littlewood, The Biological Weapons Convention: A Failed Revolution (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2005).

14 BWC/AD HOC GROUP/CRP.8 (technically corrected version), Protocol to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction, May 30, 2001.

15 Graham S. Pearson, “Report from Geneva: Strengthening the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention,” Quarterly Review, No. 16, September 2001, p. 18, <http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Units/spru/hsp/documents/cbwcb53.pdf>.

16 See Jenni Rissanen, “Continued Turbulence over BWC Verification,” in Trevor Findlay and Oliver Meier, eds., VERTIC, Verification Yearbook 2002 (London: VERTIC, 2003), p. 82.

17 Graham S. Pearson, “Report from Geneva: The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention,” Quarterly Review, No. 17, December 2001, p. 18, <http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Units/spru/hsp/documents/cbwcb54.pdf>.

18 L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between (New York: New York Review of Books, 1953), p. 17.

19 BWC/AD HOC GROUP/ 3, Procedural Report, January 6, 1995.

20 Author’s observation.

21 See, for example, BWC/AHG/28, Procedural Report of the Ad Hoc Group of the States Parties to the BTWC, July 24, 1995; BWC/AHG/32, Procedural Report of the Ad Hoc Group of the States Parties to the BTWC, September 27, 1996. (“BTWC” is an alternative shorthand for the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention.)

22 BWC/AD HOC GROUP/35, June 9, 1997.

23 BWC/AD HOC GROUP/55-1, March 1, 2001.

24 See, for example, BWC/AD HOC GROUP/21, The Role and Objectives of Information Visits, Working Paper submitted by the United Kingdom, July 13, 1995.

25 BWC/AD HOC GROUP/WP.178, Working Paper submitted by Australia, Austria, Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, and Switzerland G. [Non-Challenge Visits], July 22, 1997.

26 Author’s observation.

27 BWC/AD HOC GROUP/WP.99, Working Paper submitted by the Russian Federation on threshold quantities, September 16, 1996; BWC/AD HOC GROUP/WP.197, Working Paper submitted by Ukraine on threshold quantities, July 30, 1997.

28 The eventual definition read as follows: “Any preparation, including live-attenuated, killed or otherwise modified micro-organism obtained from organism, including inactivated toxins and nucleic acids, which, when introduced by any route into a human being or animal, induces in it a specific immune response for prophylaxis or protection against infectious diseases(s) or intoxication, and which is safe for human beings and/or animals.”

29 See Article 4, paragraphs 12 and 13 in BWC/Ad Hoc Group/CRP.8 (technically corrected version), May 30, 2001.

30 See, for example, BWC/CONF.VIII/WP.17, Review of Developments in Science and Technology: Key Points from the 2012–2015 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention Intersessional Programme, submitted by the United Kingdom; BWC/MSP/2018/MX.2/WP.2, Technical Working Paper on Genome Editing and Other Scientific and Technological Developments of Relevance to the Convention, submitted by Switzerland, July 19, 2018; BWC/MSP/2018/MX.2/WP.4, Genome Editing: Addressing Implications for the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, submitted by the United Kingdom, July 26, 2018, BWC/CONF.VIII/WP.20; Technological Developments for the Decoding on New, Old and Ancient Infectious Disease Outbreaks and Incidents’ Lessons for the BTWC, submitted by Sweden.

31 Annex B was in three parts: A: General Provisions; B: Field Investigations; C: Facility Investigations—see BWC/Ad Hoc Group/CRP.8 (technically corrected version), May 30, 2001.

32 Pearson, “Report from Geneva,” No. 16, p. 15.

33 Statement by Ellen Tauscher, US Under-Secretary of State, at BTWC Meeting of States Parties, December 9, 2009, cited in BWPP BioWeapons Prevention Project, Report #4, December 10, 2009; BWC/MSP/2018/MX.5/WP.3, Institutional Strengthening of the BWC, submitted by the United States, August 10, 2018.

34 See the BWC Implementation Support Unit website for details of the full titles and agenda for each of the five MXs: <https://meetings.unoda.org/meeting/bwc-mx-2020/>.