The taboo on the use of biological weapons has now been openly breached for the first time in living memory. There has never been a time when strengthening the international ban on the development and possession, as well as the use, of these weapons was more urgent. The anthrax attack came less than two months after the US, alone among the 144 parties to the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972 (BWC), rejected a Protocol to monitor the ban. The five-yearly review of the BWC, which will take place in Geneva later this month, will offer a rare opportunity for the US to redeem that negative message and reaffirm its commitment to the elimination of all germ weapons.
The Convention, the first modern arms treaty to prohibit an entire class of weapons, has no verification provisions. Since the Convention came into force, the rapid growth of biotechnologies that could facilitate the development of new, deadly and untreatable agents of disease has aroused military interest and raised international concern. In 1991 the BWC parties, including the US, embarked on a verification feasibility study that produced a positive report by consensus in 1993. In the following year, also by consensus, a negotiating body was established and given a mandate to strengthen the BWC with a legally-binding Protocol including possible verification measures.
It has been the goal of the negotiators to agree on a Protocol text before the BWC's fifth review conference, to be held in Geneva this year from 19 Nov. to 7 Dec. With this in mind, at the end of last March the Chairman of the negotiations, Ambassador Tibor Toth of Hungary, produced a composite Protocol text intended to bridge the remaining differences among the negotiating parties. By that time the new Bush administration had completed its policy review on BWC issues. Nevertheless, US negotiators sat silently through the intervening negotiations and did not make their position clear until 25 July, when they rejected not only the Chairman's text but also the entire approach embodied in the negotiating mandate, thereby repudiating the positions of the two previous US administrations and preventing further negotiation under the established consensus rules.
Even before the anthrax attack, other BWC parties were alarmed at the spectacle of the international community retreating from its intention to monitor compliance with the biological weapons ban. Many demanded that the US present alternative means for strengthening the Convention. Consequently, a set of US proposals was issued in late October (see below).
US allies see the proposals not as substitutes for the Protocol, but rather as useful adjuncts or isolated elements of it, lacking the synergism of a balanced compliance regime and the binding force of a legal instrument. Because positive action to control biological weapons is so essential at this time, however, our allies say they are willing to compromise in order to reach consensus when the review conference meets later this month; but they emphasize the importance of adopting multilateral measures that include all states parties, not just a like-minded group. Some allies have proposed additional measures, and all advocate ongoing discussions following the review conference in order to permit the evolution of stronger measures. In view of the bitterness generated in many quarters by the US rejection of the Protocol, however, it is uncertain whether consensus will be attainable at the review conference on any of these objectives. Indeed, agreement on any joint statement at all may prove impossible. Many fear that, if this happens, the norm against bioweapons will deteriorate further.
As we enter a century that promises to be shaped by biotechnology, many aspects of which can be misused in ways at least as horrifying as those generated by nuclear physics, the decisions we make now may be critical in determining our future fate. The current anthrax attack is only a small taste of what is possible. If we want to prevent the ultimate exploitation of disease as a weapon, some means for monitoring compliance with the ban on biological weapons is going to be essential.US objections to the Protocol ultimately boil down to unwillingness to accept any restrictions whatsoever on US activities, no matter what the compensatory gain. On 4 Sept. the NY Times exposed three secret projects that raise questions regarding US compliance with the BWC. Under the Protocol the US would have had to reveal some information about these projects. Although they were undertaken in the name of defense, the projects reproduce many aspects of an offensive biological weapons threat. If the US can do that with impunity, so can any other BWC party-and the Convention's prohibitions are reduced to meaninglessness. To avoid this problem, the Protocol would make openness the measure of whether the intent is defensive or offensive. Openness about activities does not require exposing security information--as the Dept. of Defense implicitly acknowledged when it admitted that the disclosures had not damaged US biodefenses. So why the secrecy?
Asst. Secretary of State Avis Bohlen, in an address to the UN General Assembly on 10 Oct., continued the Administration's efforts to undermine the scope of the BWC by emphasizing the use of biological weapons with lethal intent as the operative criteria in combatting the threat. The BWC outlaws possession, not just use, of all bioweapons, including incapacitating and anti-materiel biological weapons, not just lethal ones. It is only by enforcing a total ban on everyone, including the US, that we can hope to prevent the full catastrophe.
US Proposals for Adoption at the BWC Review Conference