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Disarmament Diplomacy

Issue No. 78, July/August 2004

Strengthening the BWC:
A Way Forward

Jonathan B. Tucker

The 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) banning the development, production, stockpiling, and transfer of this category of armaments enshrines an important international norm and provides the basis for collective action against proliferant states and state-sponsored terrorist organisations. In contrast to the nonproliferation treaties governing nuclear and chemical weapons, however, the BWC lacks formal measures for monitoring compliance, undermining its credibility and deterrent value. Although efforts over the past two decades to strengthen the Convention have yielded regrettably meagre results, persevering in this effort is essential at a time when dual-use biotechnology equipment, materials, and know-how are diffusing worldwide and dramatic advances in molecular biology could be misused for military or terrorist purposes.¹

On July 25, 2001, the new US administration of President George W. Bush rejected a draft inspection Protocol for the BWC that had been negotiated over the previous six and a half years. Since that debacle, states parties to the Convention have agreed to hold annual meetings to discuss voluntary national implementation measures leading up to the 2006 Review Conference, but more needs to be done on a coordinated, multilateral basis to counter emerging biological weapons (BW) threats.² Experience has shown that politically binding steps, such as the Confidence-Building Measure (CBM) declarations developed during the BWC Review Conferences in 1986 and 1991, are too weak to be effective. Indeed, fewer than half of BWC member states have filed annual CBM declarations on a regular basis. The only way to put real "teeth" in the Convention is through the negotiation of legally binding agreements that create enforceable obligations and deter violations.

Although the draft BWC Protocol has been relegated to political limbo and is unlikely to be revived, many countries contend that some type of multilateral agreement is still needed to bolster the Convention. If President Bush is re-elected in November, the United States will almost certainly maintain its current policy of opposing any legally-binding strengthening measures. But if Senator John F. Kerry wins, he has pledged to launch a new initiative in the field of biological disarmament. According to a statement by the Kerry campaign, "As President, John Kerry... will reconstitute international negotiations to strengthen the bioweapons ban, building on lessons from United Nations inspections, visits to bioweapons facilities in the former Soviet Union, and new trial inspections at government, university, and industrial facilities." In view of that promise, this article examines the form and substance of a new multilateral process that might be undertaken to strengthen the BWC.

A Brief History of Strengthening Efforts

The technical characteristics of biological weapons make their prohibition considerably more difficult to monitor and enforce than that of chemical weapons (see Table 1). Whereas chemical warfare agents such as sarin and sulphur mustard are synthetic compounds with no legitimate civilian uses, biological pathogens and toxins exist in nature and have numerous peaceful applications in scientific research and in the development and testing of drugs and vaccines to combat infectious disease. Moreover, although the manufacture of chemical warfare agents requires specialised reactors and pipes that can withstand highly corrosive reagents, BW agents can be produced in standard fermenters and other biotechnology equipment used to make beer, vaccines, and other legitimate products. Sterilising the vessels between batches would eliminate most traces of illicit production.

Because of the dual-use nature of industrial microbiology, monitoring the BWC with a reasonable degree of confidence requires highly intrusive inspections of suspect facilities, including sampling and analysis. Unfortunately, the lack of effective compliance measures in the BWC enabled the Soviet Union to violate the Convention for nearly two decades with impunity. Although Article VI allows member states to bring alleged violations to the attention of the UN Security Council, the United States and Britain never invoked this provision because the Soviet Union, as a permanent member of the Council, had the power to veto an investigation.

The consultation provisions under Article V proved to be equally ineffective. When a major outbreak of human anthrax took place in April 1979 in the Soviet city of Sverdlovsk, the KGB destroyed evidence and fabricated data to cover up the real cause: an accidental release of processed anthrax spores from a bioweapons production facility. After the American intelligence community learned of the incident, the US government requested an official explanation under Article V, but Moscow continued to dissemble and was never held to account.

Table 1: Biological and Chemical Weapons Compared (not including toxins)

Recognising the need to strengthen the BWC, the 1991 Review Conference established a group of government verification experts (VEREX) to conduct a systematic study of biological monitoring techniques. The VEREX group deliberated in 1992-93 and concluded that certain combinations of measures could increase transparency and deter violations. In response to this analysis, BWC members agreed in the fall of 1994 to establish a new multilateral negotiating forum called the Ad Hoc Group, which began work in early 1995 on a "legally binding instrument" to augment the BWC. Although it was clear from the outset that the Convention could not be verified with a high level of confidence, many countries believed that a system of declarations and on-site inspections would reinforce the norm of non-possession and establish internationally accepted procedures for investigating suspected violations. In addition to compliance issues, the negotiating mandate included three other topics: confidence-building measures, objective criteria for defining the "types and quantities" of BW agents prohibited by Article I, and expansion of international trade and cooperation in peaceful uses of biotechnology pursuant to Article X.

Early in the Ad Hoc Group negotiations, a struggle developed between two contending models for monitoring compliance with the BWC. One approach was to base the regime on the verification system of the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which entered into force in 1997. The CWC provides for the declaration and routine inspection of all chemical weapons sites and many dual-capable chemical industry facilities, backed up by the right of any state party to request the investigation of an alleged use of chemical weapons or a suspect development, production, or storage facility (declared or undeclared) on the territory of another member state. Implementing this extensive regime requires a large organisation with about 200 full-time inspectors. The alternative approach to BWC compliance monitoring was to establish a more modest system without detailed declarations or routine inspections of industry or biodefence facilities. Instead, the second model emphasised investigations of alleged BW use and suspect sites, carried out by a lean and efficient inspectorate.

Whereas officials from the US National Security Council staff and the European Union favoured the CWC model, the US Department of Defense opposed routine inspections of biodefence facilities because it did not wish to expose sensitive threat assessment and countermeasure development programmes to outside scrutiny. Representatives of the American pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries also lobbied against the CWC model on the grounds that routine inspections of dual-use production facilities such as vaccine plants would be disruptive, costly, and might compromise valuable trade secrets. Moreover, because the vast majority of biotech development and production facilities are located in the United States, Western Europe, and Japan, a routine inspection regime would impose a disproportionate burden on Western companies that pose few if any BWC compliance concerns.

From 1995 until 2000, US government agencies and countries in the Western Group were sharply divided between the two contending models for monitoring the BWC. According to the former deputy head of the US delegation to the Ad Hoc Group, "US policy initially reflected the 'anti-CWC' approach and slowly shifted to a hybrid of the two models.... However, even these US concessions failed to produce a workable compromise within the Western Group, and many members, particularly the European Union, continued to push for a pure CWC model, pinning their hopes on the like-minded elements of the US government [and] ultimately winning the internal US government struggle."³ This internal dissention led to policy paralysis and prevented Washington from playing a leadership role in the BWC Protocol negotiations.

The deep divisions within the Western Group also made it difficult for its members to stand firm against efforts by other countries to subvert the BWC by exploiting secondary elements of the negotiating mandate. Russia, for example, sought to develop "definitions, objective criteria, and threshold quantities" to delineate the broad prohibitions of Article I in a way that would limit its coverage and potentially create a "safe harbour" for certain types of offensively oriented development. Moscow never had a good chance of achieving this objective and would probably have abandoned it had the Western Group been more united. Even more troublesome was an effort by radical members of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) to use the Article X provisions calling for expanded trade in biotechnology as a pretext for dismantling the Australia Group, an informal forum of 38 industrialised countries that "harmonise" their national controls on the export of dual-use materials and equipment to suspected BW proliferators.

These flaws in the negotiating mandate, as well as the desire to shield sensitive biodefence activities, led to the Bush administration's decision to reject the draft BWC Protocol in 2001. (It was no longer politically feasible to revise the text significantly.) Although some of the US concerns were legitimate, administration officials erred by pulling out of the negotiations abruptly and without prior consultations, creating considerable ill will and adding to their reputation for ideologically driven unilateralism. The US delegation further poisoned the atmosphere by seeking to eliminate the mandate of the Ad Hoc Group in the final hours of the Fifth BWC Review Conference in December 2001, producing an acrimonious deadlock that forced the chairman to suspend the conference for a year.⁴

In retrospect, the idea of basing the BWC Protocol on the CWC verification regime was misguided because, for technical reasons, the chemical disarmament template cannot be applied to biological weapons without major modifications. Nevertheless, some elements of the draft Protocol - such as investigations of alleged use and suspect facilities - would be worth preserving in another framework.

The Building-Block Approach

On April 29, 2002, several months after the breakdown of the Ad Hoc Group negotiations, the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office issued a "green paper" proposing a number of alternative measures for strengthening the BWC, including, inter alia, "investigations into non-compliance with the Convention (alleged use of BW, misuse of facilities, and suspicious outbreaks of disease)" and "a new Convention on physical protection of dangerous pathogens."⁵ If Senator Kerry is inaugurated the next president of the United States in January 2005, he should consult with other countries and explore the feasibility of launching a new multilateral process to strengthen the BWC along the lines suggested in the British green paper.

Instead of pursuing a comprehensive instrument like the BWC Protocol, which was burdened with extraneous and counterproductive elements, it would be far better to negotiate three "building-block" agreements, each of which is modest in scope but can stand on its own. A precedent for this approach is the set of five nuclear safety treaties negotiated since 1986 under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), including the Convention on Nuclear Safety and the agreements on the physical protection of nuclear material, early notification and assistance in case of a nuclear accident, and the safe management of spent fuel and radioactive waste.

Regardless of which forum is ultimately chosen for the BWC strengthening negotiations, three separate working groups should be established to develop the following legally binding agreements: a Biosecurity Protocol, an Investigation Protocol, and an Inspection Protocol. Whereas the first measure would address proliferation and bioterrorism concerns, the other two would focus on BWC compliance.

The Biosecurity Protocol would establish a set of functional standards for the physical protection, control, and accounting of dangerous pathogens and toxins, including guidelines for registering and licensing laboratories that possess or transfer these materials and for vetting scientists who work with them. To attract the support of developing countries, the protocol would include provisions for technical assistance, such as transfers of security technology and equipment, so that the baseline standards for laboratory security can be set higher than would otherwise be possible. Although countries would implement the standards set out in the Biosecurity Protocol through national legislation, international oversight would be provided through periodic review meetings, similar to those held every three years under the Convention on Nuclear Safety. At these sessions, member states would be expected to report on the development and implementation of their national biosecurity systems and to answer questions from other parties.⁶

The Investigation Protocol would contain provisions for conducting field investigations of the alleged use of BW agents and suspicious outbreaks of infectious disease. This agreement would be based on an existing mechanism under which the United Nations Secretary-General (UNSG) can, at the request of a UN member state or on his own authority, assemble a small Group of Experts and dispatch them to the site of an alleged chemical or biological attack to conduct a forensic investigation. In the past, the UNSG has launched investigations of the alleged use of fungal toxins ("yellow rain") by the Soviet Union and its allies in Southeast Asia and Afghanistan in 1981-82, and of alleged chemical warfare during the Iran-Iraq War in 1984-88 and the conflicts in Mozambique and Azerbaijan in 1992.⁷

The track record of the UNSG investigation process has been mixed because countries implicated in chemical or biological attacks are under no legal obligation to open their territory to UN expert teams. Moreover, forensic evidence of biological or toxin weapons use tends to be highly perishable, making it essential to conduct an on-site investigation shortly after an alleged attack. Because of these factors, UN investigation teams have obtained conclusive results only in cases where they obtained prompt access to the attack site and the purported victims, either because the state in question claimed to be the victim (e.g., Iran) or sought to clear its name of a false charge (e.g., Armenia).

Under the Investigation Protocol, international experts in fields relevant to the BWC, such as microbiology, epidemiology, and infectious disease, would agree to be placed on a roster and called up on short notice to conduct a field investigation of an alleged biological attack or a suspicious outbreak of disease. States parties to the protocol would voluntarily waive their sovereign right to deny UN investigators access to the site of a alleged incident, making it possible to clarify or resolve concerns about BWC compliance. (The CWC currently provides for investigations of alleged chemical weapons use on the territory of a member state.) Because the Investigation Protocol would be legally binding, the refusal by an accused state to permit the entry of UN inspectors would constitute a treaty violation and might well be seen as tantamount to an admission of guilt.

To serve as a basis for BWC field investigations, the existing UNSG mechanism would have to be revisited because it has not been utilised since 1992 and lacks adequate funding and resources. The list of scientific experts would have to be updated and the guidelines for the conduct of field investigations, which date from 1989, would need to be revised to reflect the dramatic advances in forensic science and technology over the past 15 years. It would also be desirable to create a stockpile of personal protective gear and inspection equipment for expert teams to use, and to ensure an ongoing programme of training and exercises.

The third BWC-strengthening agreement, the Inspection Protocol, would set out procedures for "challenge-type" visits, at the request of a state party, to any development, production, or storage facility on the territory of another member state that is suspected of a treaty violation. Such visits would be without right of refusal. By focusing exclusively on suspect sites rather than routine inspections of dual-use industrial facilities and biodefence programmes, this measure would be simpler and less burdensome to implement than the draft BWC Protocol. Information leading to a suspect-site inspection request would probably come from national intelligence sources such as satellite imagery, human agents, or defectors. Ideally, such inspections would be rare (one or two a year) but highly intrusive, with guaranteed access to a challenged facility on relatively short notice and the right to collect samples for off-site analysis.

Adding managed-access provisions to safeguard proprietary and national-security information should make the Inspection Protocol acceptable to the US pharmaceutical industry and the Department of Defense. Although industry is confident that it would never be the legitimate target of a suspicion-based challenge, it does worry about the possibility of frivolous or abusive inspection requests. To address this concern, industry favours a "green-light" filter that would require an affirmative vote by the members of an executive council of state-party representatives before a suspect-site inspection could go forward.

To implement the Inspection Protocol, it would be desirable to create a standing BWC inspectorate of about 25 staff members to organise and conduct suspect-site inspections on a timely basis. This unit would be equipped with supplies of inspection equipment and personal protective gear, and would ideally have access to a jet aircraft that could transport the inspectors rapidly to a challenged site. The inspectorate should also establish a network of certified reference laboratories for sample analysis. Because suspect-site inspections would be relatively rare, the members of the standing inspectorate would spend most of their time monitoring and analysing open-source information, including scientific and technical developments relevant to the BWC, and conducting training and exercises.

Establishing a BWC inspectorate that could be dispatched anywhere in the world on short notice to pursue alleged violations would have a strong deterrent effect and would significantly strengthen the Convention. Of course, one drawback of a "challenge-only" regime is that member states would have to back up an inspection request with enough evidence to demonstrate that it was not frivolous or abusive. They would also have to summon the political will to utilise suspect-site inspections to resolve ambiguities and pursue compliance concerns that do not necessarily meet the standard of a "smoking gun".

In the case of the CWC, the political bar for requesting a challenge inspection has been set so high that no state party has invoked this mechanism during the first seven years since entry into force, despite public charges by the US government that a member state (Iran) is violating the treaty. The longer the CWC challenge provision remains unused, the more its credibility will erode and its deterrent value will diminish. Accordingly, the standard of evidence for requesting a BWC suspect-site inspection should be low enough that member countries are willing to utilise this mechanism without too much hesitation.

Need for a New Negotiating Forum

What is the appropriate multilateral forum for negotiating new measures to strengthen the BWC? Simply reviving the Ad Hoc Group is not a viable option because this body is still tied inextricably to the draft BWC Protocol and the deeply flawed negotiating mandate. In the event of a return to the old forum, Russia and the radical NAM would almost certainly seek to resurrect the Chairman's draft text and resume their efforts to limit the scope of Article I and dismantle the Australia Group, threatening to block consensus if their demands are not met. The end-result would be either a stalemated negotiation or a watered-down agreement that at best would do little to strengthen the BWC and at worst could do significant harm.

One solution to this problem would be to dissolve the Ad Hoc Group and its existing legal mandate and replace it immediately with a new multilateral forum that has a different name and a new mandate focused exclusively on the negotiation of the three BWC-strengthening protocols. (A precedent for modifying the name, structure, and mandate of an international body is the replacement of UNSCOM with UNMOVIC.) If the Western Group and other like-minded states could unite behind this approach, they should be able to isolate Russia and the radical NAM if these countries insist on returning to the old, discredited mandate.

Should it prove impossible to establish a new multilateral forum within the BWC framework, a fall-back option would be create a negotiating body made up entirely of like-minded states. This "core group" would be linked to the BWC process but would remain distinct from it. After the core group has negotiated the three strengthening protocols, it would reach out to other states, which would be invited to review the draft agreements and recommend changes. Although some of these changes would be incorporated into the protocols, only members of the core group could approve the final texts. Once the agreements have been adopted, they would be opened to accession by all BWC member states. To facilitate participation, non-core-group countries would be allowed to accede to the strengthening agreements as a package or on an à la carte basis.

An example of a negotiation limited initially to a group of like-minded states was the effort by members of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) to develop an International Code of Conduct Against the Proliferation of Ballistic Missiles. In 1999, when the Netherlands chaired the MTCR, it proposed the development of a politically binding code of conduct by the end of 2002. To this end, the European Union organised several international meetings.⁸ After MTCR members crafted the draft agreement, they selected one member (France) to conduct an outreach effort to non-MTCR countries, which were encouraged to provide comments. The MTCR then convened an international conference to discuss the changes proposed by non-member states, some of which were incorporated into the final text. MTCR members adopted the agreement at a conference in The Hague in November 2002. Renamed the Hague Code of Conduct (HCoC), it was then opened to all other countries. To date, more than 110 have signed.

Similar to this process for the MTCR, the new forum for negotiating BWC-strengthening measures would be linked to an existing group of like-minded states that has a mission or experience directly relevant to biological disarmament, and whose members are all parties in good standing to the Convention. Unless the negotiating forum is tied to a pre-existing body, selecting the members of the core group would appear arbitrary and unfair, and could provoke a political battle that would cripple the negotiation before it starts.

What existing group of states would be most appropriate? One possibility is the 38-nation Australia Group, which has substantive expertise and experience in the area of biological weapons and export controls.⁹ (In June 2004, the group welcomed five new members: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, and Slovenia.) A drawback of the Australia Group, however, is that its very existence is anathema to China and radical members of the NAM such as Iran, which view it as a discriminatory supplier cartel. As a result, these states would be unlikely to accede to any agreements negotiated by a forum linked to the Australia Group.

Other possible fora of like-minded states include the 30-member Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), whose members include all of the Western industrialised states plus the Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Hungary, Poland, South Korea, and Mexico. Although the OECD has considerable expertise in biotechnology policy, it has generally shied away from security issues. A third candidate forum would be the Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction, established at the G8 summit at Kananaskis, Canada, in 2002. This group focuses on funding nonproliferation projects in Russia and consists of the G8 countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, United Kingdom, and United States) plus Australia, Belgium, Finland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, South Korea, Sweden, and Switzerland. Russia would be allowed to participate in the negotiating forum as a voting member if it agreed to drop its attempt to redefine Article I.

Negotiating new measures to strengthen the BWC in a forum of like-minded states would offer the benefit of a strong consensus on strategic goals, facilitating the negotiation process and enhancing the quality of the resulting agreements. However, such a limited-membership forum would have the serious and perhaps fatal drawback that the countries excluded from the initial negotiation - including states of BW proliferation concern - may view the process as a "poison pill" and refuse to accede to any agreements in which they have not played an equal role. Creating a new negotiating forum outside the BWC framework might also provoke opposition from countries that have resented the Bush administration's active neglect of the Convention. For these reasons, it would be preferable to replace the Ad Hoc Group with an open-ended forum of BWC member states that has a new name and a more focused mandate. Only if that approach fails would it be advisable to create a core group of like-minded states outside the BWC framework.

Whatever forum is ultimately chosen, providing the option to accede to the three strengthening protocols either as a package or individually would make it more attractive for some countries to participate, if only on a selective basis. The drawback of the building-block approach is that, at least for a transitional period, it would create a complex, multi-tier regime in which some BWC member states voluntarily accept more legal obligations than others.

Achieving universal or broad-based participation in the three strengthening protocols would probably be a political process extending over several years and requiring the use of carrots as well as sticks. For example, if other proliferant states decide to emulate Libya by unilaterally renouncing biological weapons, accession to the package of BWC strengthening protocols would be a reasonable condition for demonstrating compliance with the Convention.

Prospects for Moving Forward

Ongoing efforts to strengthen the BWC are currently limited to the "new process" of annual meetings of member states leading up to the Sixth Review Conference. Although these meetings have promoted useful exchanges of information on national implementation measures such as penal legislation and biosecurity regulations, they have not led to any coordinated strengthening measures. Indeed, the mandate of the "new process" explicitly states that any follow-up decisions or actions arising from the annual meetings may not occur until the Sixth Review Conference convenes in late 2006. Regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election, next year's meeting of BWC states parties (set to address scientific codes of conduct) should proceed on schedule. Nevertheless, a victory by Senator Kerry would create the opportunity to pursue, in parallel, a new multilateral initiative to strengthen the BWC.

Some pessimistic analysts contend that even if Kerry wins in November, lingering resentment over the abrupt US rejection of the draft BWC Protocol could make it difficult for a new administration in Washington to persuade other countries to relaunch the BWC strengthening process with a new forum and negotiating mandate. Graham Pearson of the University of Bradford contends, for example, that "any new proposals... associated with the United States will be dead on arrival and will be rejected by the international community." Given the clear and present danger posed by biological warfare and bioterrorism, however, such dire predictions are surely exaggerated. Many countries remain eager to strengthen the BWC on a multilateral basis, so that if a Kerry administration demonstrates humility and a willingness to consult widely, a significant number of member states are likely to join in a new effort to reinforce the Convention in a more focused and effective way.

Assuming that the package of three protocols to strengthen the BWC can be negotiated, what are the prospects for obtaining the US Senate's consent to their ratification? In recent years, the Republican-controlled Senate has declined to endorse the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and demanded the inclusion in the CWC ratification legislation of unilateral conditions that significantly weakened that accord. Nevertheless, the prospects for US ratification of a set of BWC-strengthening protocols are not as poor as they may appear at first sight.

The two key constituencies in the United States to whom any legally binding measures to bolster the BWC must be sold are the Department of Defense and the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. If these entities can be persuaded of the merits of the strengthening protocols and reassured that the associated costs and constraints are acceptable, the agreements will stand a good chance of gaining Senate approval. To win this debate, however, the administration will need to show that the protocols are not just "feel-good arms control" but provide tangible benefits in terms of confidence-building, enhanced BWC compliance, and reduced risks of BW proliferation to rogue states and terrorists.

With a new American leadership that reaches out cooperatively to other nations and speaks with a strong and consistent voice, it should be possible to negotiate a set of modest but effective measures to strengthen the BWC. Such a strategy of small steps is likely to be far more productive than the previous approach of shooting for the moon and falling short.

Notes

1. Mark Wheelis, "Will the 'New Biology' Lead to New Weapons?" Arms Control Today, vol. 34, no. 6 (July/August 2004), pp. 6-13.

2. Jonathan B. Tucker, "The BWC New Process: A Preliminary Assessment," The Nonproliferation Review, vol. 11, no. 1 (Spring 2004), pp. 26-39.

3. Kenneth D. Ward, "The BWC Protocol: Mandate for Failure," The Nonproliferation Review, vol. 11, no. 2 (Summer 2004), online at: http://www.cns.miis.edu/pubs/npr/vol11/112/112ward.pdf

4. Jenni Rissanen, "Continued Turbulence Over BWC Verification," in Trevor Findlay and Oliver Meier, eds., Verification Yearbook 2002 (Basford, UK: Russell Press for the Verification Research, Training and Information Centre, 2002), pp. 75-89.

5. United Kingdom, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Green Paper, "Strengthening the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention: Countering the Threat from Biological Weapons," April 2002, online at: http://www.fco.gov.uk/Files/kfile/btwc290402,0.pdf

6. Jonathan B. Tucker, "Preventing Terrorist Access to Dangerous Pathogens: The Need for International Biosecurity Standards," Disarmament Diplomacy, No. 66, September 2002, pp. 8-12,

7. Jonathan B. Tucker and Raymond A. Zilinskas, "Assessing U.S. Proposals to Strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention," Arms Control Today, April 2002, pp. 10-14.

8. The Netherlands, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, "ICOC - Background information," http://www.minbuza.nl, 2002.

9. For more information on the Australia Group and its member countries, see: http://www.australiagroup.net

10. Graham S. Pearson, "21 Years of CBW Protection: A Changing World," paper presented at Eighth International Symposium on Protection against Chemical and Biological Warfare Agents, Gothenburg, Sweden, June 2-6, 2004, p. 32, online at: http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/sbtwc/other/GP_Gothenburg_paper.pdf

Jonathan B. Tucker (jtucker@miis.edu) is a senior researcher in the Washington, D.C. office of the Monterey Institute's Center for Nonproliferation Studies. For comments on an earlier draft of his article, he is grateful to Amy Sands, Jofi Joseph, Alistair Millar, and Barbara Hatch Rosenberg.