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Disarmament DiplomacyIssue No. 67, October - November 2002 News ReviewUS Reportedly Seeks Shutdown of BWC DebateSpeculation is now rife that the Bush administration has decided to reject any structured diplomatic discussion of ways and means to strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). In July last year, the administration withdrew from negotiations on a compliance and verification protocol to the treaty, under consideration by an Ad Hoc Group (AHG) of states parties since the mid-1990s. In December last year, the Convention's Fifth Review Conference was suspended after the US tried to secure a guarantee that protocol negotiations would never resume. (See Jenni Rissanen, 'Left in Limbo: Review Conference Suspended on Edge of Collapse', Disarmament Diplomacy No. 62, January/February 2002, pp. 18-45.) The Conference is due to conclude in Geneva on November 11-22 this year. For much of 2002, the US has been promoting a series of non-protocol measures - based on national legislation and implementation, backed by international law-enforcement cooperation - to reinforce the Convention's norm against biological warfare. According to a number of reports, however, the administration has now conveyed to key allies in Europe and elsewhere its conclusion that any kind of debate on the future direction of the Convention is no longer desirable, either at the resumed Conference or even until the following such meeting, scheduled for 2006. In the absence of agreement on a protocol, many BWC states parties had been pressing the White House to at least back proposals for meetings to be held between review conferences to chart an alternative course. A clear indication of the new twist in US policy came on August 27, when John Bolton, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, told reporters in Tokyo: "In a perfect world I would like to see [US] proposals endorsed and acted upon. Whether that is possible in the current political context of the BWC, I rather doubt". Bolton was speaking after delivering a speech on 'The US Position on the Biological Weapons Convention' at the Tokyo America Center. The speech was as upbeat about the relevance of "other effective forums" as it was dubious about the framework afforded by the Convention: "The Ad Hoc Group's raison d'être has been to see that a draft Protocol based on traditional arms control measures comes into force. Many nations want to use the Ad Hoc Group to revive the draft Protocol at a later date or negotiate a new agreement based on traditional measures. Having determined that traditional measures are not effective on biology and that those measures would put national security information and confidential business information at risk, the United States said there was no longer a need for the Ad Hoc Group. Our objections to the Protocol and those traditional measures on which it is based are real. We need to find a way to move beyond this debate and focus on what counts: a strengthened commitment to combat the BW threat. ... The United States last fall proposed several important measures to combat the BW threat, through means that would be far more effective than the draft Protocol. In the past year great progress has been made to combat the threat posed by biological weapons. National, bilateral, and multilateral efforts have made it more difficult for those pursuing biological weapons to obtain the necessary ingredients and made it easier to detect and counter any attack. ... The United States is committed to combating the BW threat. We will do so where we can and when we can. Recent efforts illustrate the US commitment to combat the threat. Other initiatives are underway in other effective forums." The response of many of America's allies to the apparent shift away from any sort of reform debate within the BWC was predictably chilly. According to analyst Jenni Rissanen (September 6): "Other countries were quite upset. It puts US allies in a very difficult position... US officials announced to the Western Group partners [that] their position had 'evolved'. People said they should have used the word 'regressed'... Last year they [the US] said [that] in order to agree to follow-up meetings [the states parties] would have to kill the Ad Hoc Group. Now they no longer support the whole concept of follow-up meetings." The same day, Michael Moodie, President of the Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute in Washington, complained: "The US seems to be very intent on wrapping this up... They want absolutely no possibility that there will be a return in any way to the protocol negotiations. They don't want anyone thinking in any way they have a back door to negotiations...so they're taking this very hard line towards the closure of the Review Conference." Many commentators, entirely sympathetic to US national security concerns, warn of the dangers of not seeking a dual-track approach of working both within and outside the Convention to bolster the BW non-proliferation regime. On September 19, Amy Smithson, senior analyst on biological and chemical weapons at the Henry L. Stimson Center in Washington, complained: "It sounds to me as if they've thrown the baby out with the bathwater. The contradiction between the rhetoric [about the BW threat] and what the administration is actually doing...is huge. Not a day goes by when they don't mention the Iraq threat." Notes: on September 19, the Henry L. Stimson Center released a report entitled 'Compliance through Science: US Pharmaceutical Industry Experts on a Strengthened Bioweapons Non-Proliferation Regime'. A Center press release summarised the main findings: "A group of US biotechnology and pharmaceutical experts calls on the US government to rework the proposals to strengthen the international regime against biological weapons. As the title of the report indicates, they espouse a compliance-through-science approach to reducing the biological weapons threat. The industry experts argue that as the Bush administration proposals are currently structured, they could produce actions that are fragmented, weak, and contradictory to the desired goal of thwarting terrorists and governments from acquiring offensive biological weapons capabilities. Their tougher approach features the establishment of universal minimum standards for biosafety, biosecurity, and oversight of genetically-modified research, underpinned by penalties for non-compliance. The industry experts identify specific models for international standards in each of these areas, and they support a phased approach to implementation. In addition, they describe how to fill gaps in the US biosecurity initiative. The industry experts were confident...that a technically sound multilateral monitoring protocol can be constructed. Urging that inspection techniques need to be further researched and tested, the group agreed to draft trial monitoring plans for field tests at industry facilities to facilitate such activities." The US and Russia remain at odds over Washington's request to study a genetically-modified strain of anthrax bacteria developed by biologists at the State Research Center for Applied Microbiology in Obolensk. The genetically-modified strain is reportedly resistant to conventional anthrax vaccines. Although the Pentagon signed a contact with the Center in 1997 to purchase and acquire a sample of the strain, the move has been blocked on grounds of legal complications surrounding the export of dangerous pathogens. Visiting Russia in late August, Republican Senator Richard Lugar raised the issue with senior officials. Briefing journalists in Washington on September 8, Lugar stated that, while he had no breakthrough to report, he believed the Russian leadership was receptive to the US request: "Putin is far ahead of Russia's bureaucracy on these matters..." Related material on Acronym website:Reports: The US position on the Biological Weapons Convention - Combating the BW threat, speech by Undersecretary of State John Bolton, Tokyo, August 27; US arms negotiator pessimistic on bio-weapons deal, Reuters, August 27; BWC - with threat, US pressures to end review conference early, Global Security Newswire, September 6; Russia denies US access on bioweapons, Washington Post, September 8; Compliance through science - US pharmaceutical industry experts on a strengthened bioweapons non-proliferation regime, Stimson Center Report No. 48, released September 19 (http://www.stimson.org); US drops bid to strengthen germ warfare accord, Washington Post, September 19. © 2002 The Acronym Institute. |