Biological and Toxin Weapons

The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, http //projects.sipri.se/cbw/docs/bw-btwc-rruiinpage.html the Chemical Weapons Convention, http //www.opcw.nl/. 

BWC—Officially known as the Convention on the Prohibition of Development, Production, and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction. The BWC works toward general and complete disarmament, including the prohibition and elimination of all types of weapons of mass destruction. 

For further discussion of the U.S. decision to renounce biological weapons, see Tucker, Jonathan. 2002. A Farewell to Germs The U.S. Renunciation of Biological and Toxin Weapons, 1969-1970, International Security, Vol. 27, No. 1, June, pp. 107-149. 

This chapter examines the prohibitions in the relevant treaties - the Geneva Protocol of 1925, the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention and the Chemical Weapons Convention - and concludes that chemical weapons are totally prohibited. Consideration is given to the risk of use of chemical weapons posed in the 21st Century, both by states and by other organizations and individuals, such as terrorists, and to how these risks can be countered by the effective implementation of the treaties. 

As of February 2005, there are 134 States Parties to the 1925 Geneva Protocol. In addition, many of the States Parties, which entered reservations, have lifted those reservations as they are incompatible with the obligations under the later Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention and the Chemical Weapons Convention. However, there have been successive UnitedNations General Assembly resolutions on measures to uphold the authority of the 1925 Geneva Protocol, such as that adopted in October 2004 which include language that ... 

The maintenance of such reservations today are incompatible with the obligations that many of these States Parties have entered into as States Parties to the later treaties - notably the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention and the Chemical Weapons Convention and it is for that reason that the successive UN General Assembly... 

A draft convention was submitted by the UK in 1969 to the Conference of the Committee on Disarmament and this gained support from first the USA and then from the Soviet Union. It is, however, evident that its content was considerably diluted in a bilateral negotiations between the USA and the Soviet Union who, consciously or unconsciously, gutted the draft treaty of some of its more important components (Sims, 2001). Nevertheless, this led to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) which opened for signature on 10 April 1972 and entered into force three years later on 26 March 1975. 

Unfortunately, no Final Declaration was agreed by the 2001-2002 Review Conference of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention and consequently the opportunity for such a consensus statement was missed. 

Mierzejewski JW and Moon JEvan C (1999). Poland and biological weapons in Biological and Toxin Weapons Research, Development and Use from the Middle Ages to 1945 (ed. Geissler E. and Moon, J. E. van C.), 63-69, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Oxford University Press, Oxford. 

The biological weapons (BW) prohibition regime is built around the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC), the 1925 Geneva Protocol, and the Australia Group, which expanded its activities from CW-related dual-use goods and technologies into the BW realm in 1990. 

Fifth Review Conference of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention which stated ... 

Bioregulators the Emerging Scientific and Technological Issues Relating to Verification and the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention.29 This monograph was circulated to all states parties at the Review Conference. The issue of peptide bioregulators was also covered in some detail by the United States ... 

J. Rissanen, Chair releases his "composite text" for verification protocol, in Disarmament Diplomacy, 55, London Acronym Institute, March 2001. See also the assessment given by G. S. Pearson, M. R. Dando and N. A. Sims, The Composite Protocol Text an Effective Strengthening of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, Evaluation Paper No.21 (Bradford University of Bradford, July 2001). 

On the latter see M. Wheelis, Investigating disease outbreaks under a Protocol to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, in Emerging Infectious Diseases, 6 (6), 2000, 595-600. 

E. Geissler and K. Lohs, The Changing Status of Toxin Weapons, in E. Geissler (ed.), Biological and Toxin Weapons Today (Oxford Oxford University Press 1986), pp.36-56. 

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