DISARMAMENT: Political Interests Block Talks on Biological Arms

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Apr 4 2000 (IPS) - Multilateral talks on a protocol aimed at strengthening the biological weapons convention have run aground on the same reluctance to take political decisions that is holding up the rest of the inter-governmental debates on disarmament.

The Mar 13-31 sessions of the Ad Hoc Group of the States Parties to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and Their Destruction (known as the biological weapons convention, or BWC) made virtually no progress at all.

The Disarmament Conference’s first annual period of sessions, meanwhile, also failed to pull out of the impasse in which negotiations have been bogged down for at least the past two years.

The chairman of the Ad Hoc Group on the BWC, Hungarian representative Tibor Toth, admitted that after 50 weeks of sessions, starting in 1995, “it is more and more difficult to ignore that a political judgement will have to be made.”

Patricia Lewis, director of the UN Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR), warned that if a draft protocol was not ready by next year’s conference, which is to review the BWC, many years could pass before another opportunity presented itself.

“The big problem that we have is the US elections at the end of the year,” said Lewis. “Not very much can go on just before those elections or afterwards, because the new president would need some time to create policies to decide things.”

She did mention the possibility of an unexpected breakthrough in the talks due to some unforeseen political development, such as the boost received by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 1995 with the announcement by the United States and France that they would suspend nuclear testing.

“There is no ‘chairman’ text yet” on the BWC protocol, said Lewis, referring to a concise document without major contradictions.

What we have, she added, is “a ‘rolling’ text with a lot of brackets” – a reference to a document full of bracketed sections on which agreement has not been reached, some of which completely contradict each other.

On the core issues of the protocol, such as inspections to verify violations, no agreement has yet been reached, Lewis pointed out.

The differences of interpretation and objectives between blocs of countries are basically philosophical, she added.

For example, she said, there are a number of countries that argue that it is nearly impossible to set up an effective verification system because biological weapons are so small and biotechnology can be developed in such small spaces, like a university research department.

Other states, meanwhile, say that more stringent verification measures are needed, given the high level of danger poised by biological weapons and the difficulties in determining whether violations have occurred.

A third group, made up of developing countries, says it will not allow inspections unless industrialised nations share their biotechnology know-how.

Lewis said that while some industrialised nations agreed that technical and scientific cooperation could be one way to establish mutual trust, other rich countries argued that “this is our own technology. You develop your own.”

Henrietta Wilson, an expert at the Verification Research, Training and Information Centre (VERTIC), mentioned the United States as one of the countries that stress the danger of the proliferation of biological weapons.

But, she said, “some elements in the country do not accept that a protocol could greatly enhance American security, and, indeed, some observers believe that it may prove damaging.

“A number of other Western states also percieve a significant risk from BW proliferation, but, unlike the US, they feel that an adequately verified BWC protocol could contribute to their security,” Wilson added.

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), meanwhile, expressed scepticism of the effectiveness of inspections, pointing out how simple it is to erase any trace of microbiology experiments or stored biological weapons.

But, the organisation added, in the face of evidence of an unusual outbreak of disease or a violation of the BWC, international inspections may be appropriate. However, PhRMA said it only supported on-site “challenge” inspections under these circumstances, or “truly voluntary, educational visits.”

According to Wilson “it is not surprising that talk of ‘declarations’, ‘transparency’, investigations’ and ‘visits’ has caused anxiety about the impact of possible verification measures, both within the industry and in those parts of government charged with promoting the sector.”

Some developing countries have refrained from participating in the Ad Hoc Group, said Wilson, partly because they see threats to the economy and the environment, for example, as more pressing, and partly because they are disappointed with their experiences with other international arms control regimes.

For example, African nations – with the exception of South Africa – have refused to sit on the Ad Hoc Group, just as they have failed to ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention.

The first measures against the risk of biological weapons coincided with the dizzying growth of biotechnology and genetic engineering over the last few decades.

But perhaps the episode that triggered the greatest alarm was the Mar 20, 1995 attack staged in the Tokyo subway by the Aum- Shinrikyo cult using poisonous sarin gas, which killed 11 and left 3,796 injured.

Lewis stressed that “the threat from biological weapons and bioterrorism is a growing concern.”

“The big problem is that we know that the Biological and Toxin Convention has been violated by States Parties,” the British expert added, mentioning Russia and Iraq. “There are some people who are not convinced that Russia has totally abandoned its biological weapons programmes,” she added.