AMBITIOUS INCREMENTALISM

Abstract

The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) has continued along a path of slow evolution since the 2001 collapse of negotiations for a verification protocol for the treaty. Over the last ten years, two intersessional programs of work, along with the Sixth BWC Review Conference, have resulted in the establishment of practices and institutions that strengthen treaty implementation mechanisms. In addition, developments external to the BWC—such as the revitalization of the UN secretary-general's investigation mechanism—have increased the range of mechanisms available to states to address challenges posed by biological weapons. The authors argue that incremental enhancements to the BWC offer the best route forward for the treaty and for the wider biological weapons prohibition regime. The authors identify short-, medium-, and longer-term proposals for such enhancements.

Keywords:

• Biological Weapons Convention
• biological weapons
• verification and compliance
• nonproliferation policy
• incrementalism

Notes

1. Incrementalism is defined in this article as the gradual strengthening of the treaty via the creation of additional understandings and mechanisms between state parties within the BWC and within the wider political, scientific, technical, economic, and social contexts in which the treaty operates.

2. Nicholas A. Sims, The Evolution of Biological Disarmament (Oxford: Oxford University Press/Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 2001). See also Jez Littlewood, The Biological Weapons Convention: A Failed Revolution (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), pp. 47–59.

3. Richard K. Betts, “Conflict or Cooperation? Three Visions Revisited,” Foreign Affairs 89 (November/December 2010), pp. 186–94.

4. See, for example, Douglas J. Feith, War and Decision (New York: Harper, 2008); Ivo H. Daalder and James M. Lindsay, America Unbound (Washington, DC: Brookings, 2003); and Thomas P.M. Barnett, The Pentagon's New Map (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2004).

5. Harold Brown, “Is Arms Control Dead?” Washington Quarterly 23 (Spring 2000), pp. 173–77.

6. Stuart Croft, Strategies of Arms Control (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996), pp. 20–66.

7. Amanda Moodie and Michael Moodie, “Alternative Narratives For Arms Control: Bringing Together Old and New,” Nonproliferation Review 17 (July 2010), p. 302.

8. Jonathan B. Tucker, “The BWC New Process: A Preliminary Assessment,” Nonproliferation Review 11 (Spring 2004), pp. 26–39, <cns.miis.edu/npr/pdfs/111tucker.pdf>. See also Jez Littlewood, “Substance Hidden under a Mountain of Paper: The BWC Experts' Meeting in 2003,” Disarmament Diplomacy 73 (October/November 2003), pp. 63–66.

9. United Nations, “The Intersessional Programme of Work: Its Utility and Contribution to Fulfilling the Object and Purpose of the Convention Between 2003–2005 and a Case for Further Intersessional Work After 2006, Submitted by France and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland on behalf of the European Union,” Sixth BWC Review Conference, BWC/CONF.VI/WP.8, October 20, 2006.

10. On “friends of the Convention,” see Nicholas A. Sims, The Diplomacy of Biological Disarmament (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1988), p. 307; and Nicholas A. Sims, The Future of Biological Disarmament: Strengthening the Treaty Ban on Weapons (London: Routledge, 2009), pp. 173–75. On the benefit to state parties, see Gary Burns, Karen Byers, Teck Mean Chua, Heather Sheeley, and Brad Goble, “Biosafety Professionals as Stakeholders in the BWTC,” Disarmament Forum No. 1 (2011). See also Daniel Feakes, “Global Civil Society and Chemical and Biological Weapons,” in Helmut Anheier, Marlies Glasius, and Mary Kaldor, eds., Global Civil Society 2003 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).

11. Kavita M. Berger and Neil Davison, “Bringing Science to Security: Soft Implementation of the BTWC,” Disarmament Forum No. 1 (2011).

12. Krasner's definition remains the base of the understanding of a “regime.” See Stephen D. Krasner, “Structural Causes and Regime Consequences: Regimes as Intervening Variables,” International Organization 36 (Spring 1982), pp. 185–205.

13. On the trilateral process, see David C. Kelly, “The Trilateral Agreement: Lessons for Biological Weapons Verification,” in Trevor Findlay and Oliver Meier, eds., Verification Yearbook 2002 (London: Verification, Research, Training, and Information Centre [VERTIC], 2002), pp. 93–109. On UNSCOM and UNMOVIC, see Trevor Findlay, “The Lessons of UNSCOM and UNMOVIC,” in Trevor Findlay, ed., Verification Yearbook 2004 (London: VERTIC, 2004), pp. 65–86; and Charles Duelfer, Hide and Seek (New York: Public Affairs, 2009).

14. Charles C. Flowerree, “On Tending Arms Control Agreements,” Washington Quarterly 13 (1990), pp. 199–215.

15. Littlewood, The Biological Weapons Convention: A Failed Revolution, pp. 223–41.

16. Graham S. Pearson, “The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention Review Conference,” The CBW Conventions Bulletin (December 2002), p. 22.

17. United Nations, “Final Document of the Fifth BWC Review Conference,” BWC/CONF.V/17, 2002, pp. 3–4; and United Nations, “Final Document of the Sixth BWC Review Conference,” BWC/CONF.VI/6, December 8, 2006, Part III, Decisions and Recommendations, p. 19.

18. Nicholas A. Sims, “The Future Of Biological Disarmament,” Nonproliferation Review 14 (Summer 2007), pp. 351–72.

19. Julian Perry Robinson, “Chemical and Biological Weapons,” in Nathan E. Busch and Daniel H. Joyner, eds., Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2009), pp. 77–81.

20. Piers D. Millett, “The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention in Context: From Monolith to Keystone,” Disarmament Forum 3 (September 2006), p. 59.

21. Jez Littlewood, “Investigating Allegations of CBW Use: Reviving the UN Secretary-General's Mechanism,” Compliance Chronicles No. 3 (December 2006). See also UN Office for Disarmament Affairs, “Secretary-General's Mechanism for Investigation of Alleged Use of Chemical and Biological Weapons,” undated, <www.un.org/disarmament/WMD/Secretary-General_Mechanism>.

22. UN General Assembly Resolution A/RES/60/288, UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, Annex, September 20, 2006, p. 6, para. 11.

23. Gabriele Kraatz-Wadsack, “Implementing the UN Secretary-General's Mechanism on Alleged Use Investigations for Chemical, Biological and Toxin Weapons,” UN Office for Disarmament Affairs, Second Global Conference of OIE Reference Laboratories and Collaborating Centres, Paris, June 21–23, 2010.

24. Jonathan B. Tucker, “National Strategy for Countering Biological Threats: Diplomacy and International Programs,” prepared statement for House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade, 111th Cong., 2nd sess., March 18, 2010, p. 57.

25. China, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “The UN Secretary General's Mechanism on Investigation of Alleged Use of Biological and Chemical Weapons,” May 27, 2010, <www.mfa.gov.cn/eng/wjb/zzjg/jks/kjlc/shwq/t410747.htm>; and Hu Xiaodi, “Statement by Ambassador Hu Xiaodi at the Meeting of the States Parties to the Biological Weapons Convention,” December 6, 2004, <www.china-un.ch/eng/cjjk/cjthsm/t173478.htm>.

26. Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction, March 26, 1975, Article XII.

27. “Final Document of the Sixth BWC Review Conference,” p. 9, para. 2, Article I.

28. BWC Implementation Support Unit, “Additional Understandings and Agreements Reached by Review Conferences Relating to Each Article of the Biological Weapons Convention,” UN Office for Disarmament Affairs, Geneva, Switzerland, August 2007. (Based on BWC/CONF.VI/INF.1, a background paper prepared for the Sixth BWC Review Conference updated to include the understandings and agreements reached by that conference.)

29. US National Security Council, “National Strategy for Countering Biological Threats,” November 2009, p. 19.

30. Laura Kennedy, “US Statement at the Annual Meeting of States Parties of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, December 6, 2010, p. 8, <geneva.usmission.gov/2010/12/06/1206-bwc/>.

31. Laura Kennedy, “US Statement at the Annual Meeting of States Parties of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, December 6, 2010, p. 8, <geneva.usmission.gov/2010/12/06/1206-bwc/>.

32. Sims, The Future of Biological Disarmament, pp. 94–114.

33. Jonathan B. Tucker, “Strengthening Consultative Mechanisms under Article V to Address BWC Compliance Concerns,” Harvard Sussex Program, Occasional Paper, May 2011, <www.sussex.ac.uk/Units/spru/hsp/occasional%20papers/HSPOP_1.pdf>.

34. For example, see the arrangements made for the finalization of the reporting formats for CBMs in 1987, following the decision of the Second BWC Review Conference in 1986.

35. Sims, The Future of Biological Disarmament, pp. 141–67.

36. For an explanation of the original third layer see, Sims, The Evolution of Biological Disarmament, pp. 23–118.

37. Amy E. Smithson, “Biological Weapons: Can Fear Overwhelm Inaction?,” Washington Quarterly 28 (Winter 2004–05), p. 175.