2008 Meeting of Experts for the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention

1. What are biological weapons? Deadly and Cheap
2. When have Biological Weapons been used?
3. Efforts to ban biological weapons
4. What is the Biological Weapons Convention?
5. Inadequacies of the Convention
6. What is the Ad Hoc Group and what is it doing?
7. What do Individual Governments have to do after they sign?
8. States with, or suspected as having Biological Weapons
9. How can biological weapons be defended against?
10. What should WILPF groups do to support this treaty?
11. Other Conventions, Laws and Agreements Relating to Biological Warfare and Biological Weapons
12. Sources on biological weapons
13. Meetings of the BTWC

1. What are biological weapons?

Biological warfare is the deliberate spreading of disease amongst humans, animals, and plants. Biological weapons introduce a bacteria or virus into an environment for hostile purposes, that is not prepared to defend itself from the intruder. As a result, this agent can become very effective at killing plants, livestock, pets, and humans. There are a huge variety of genetically or traditionally modified bacterias and viruses to withstand antibiotics, that could be used as biological weapons, but some of the most common types today are bacteria, rickettsiae, viruses, toxins, and fungi.

Bacteria

Bacteria are single-cell organisms. Bacteria vary greatly in their level of lethality and infectivity. Although many pathogenic bacteria are susceptible to antibiotic drugs, strains can be selected that are resistant to antibiotic and occur naturally. Bacteria can be readily grown in artificial media using facilities similar to those found in the brewery industry.

Examples of Bacteria: Bacillus Anthracis (causes anthrax), Yersinia pestis (causes plague), Brucella suis (causes brucellosis) Pasturella tularensis (causes talaremia also known as rabbit fever or deer fly fever) Vibrio cholera(causes cholera) , and many other less dramatic but still pathogenic species like Salmonella typhi and Staphylococcus aureus. Effects of anthrax: About 1-6 days after inhaling Bacillus anthracis spores there would be a gradual onset of vague symptoms of illness such as fatigue, fever, mild discomfort in the chest and a possibly a dry cough. The symptoms would improve for a few hours or 2-3 days. Then, there would be sudden onset of difficulty in breathing, profuse sweating, cyanosis (blue colored skin), shock and death in 24-36 hours.

These symptoms are essentially those of Woolsorter's disease, which is caused by inhalation of Bacillus anthracis spores rather than contact with the bacterium through the skin. Contact through the skin is the most common "naturally" occurring form of Anthrax and is characterized by swelling and boils on the skin. Skin symptoms would not necessarily be expected with Anthrax resulting from inhaled spores in BW.

Rickettsiae

Rickettsiae are similar to bacteria in structure and form, but must be grown in living tissue. Examples of Rickettsiae: Coxiella burnetti (causes Q fever) and Rickettsia prowasecki(causes epidemic typhus).

Effects of Rickettsiae: Gradual onset of fever with severe headache, chills, generalized pains and dry cough (sometimes developing to bronchopneumonia) of about 2 weeks. A macular rash appears by about 5 days, first appearing on the trunk and lasting about six days. CNS manifestations are possible. Damage is caused to vascular endothelia by invasion of rickettsiae, possibly leading to thrombosis and hemorrhage. http://www.mitretek.com/mission/envene/biological/agents/rickettsia.html

Viruses

Viruses are 100 times smaller than bacteria. They mostly consist of DNA and need other living organisms to replicate. Viruses can mutate to adapt to their environments, either naturally or through genetic engineering to increase their pathogenicity/virulence. Examples of viruses include: Variola virus (causes smallpox), and Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis (causes VEE), Yellow fever virus (causes yellow fever), Ebola virus (causes Ebola hemmorrhagic fever), Hanta Virus (causes a haemorraghic fever as well)

Effects of Variola virus: The usual entry of variola virus is through the respiratory tract with infection of the oropharyngeal (mouth) or respiratory (trachea and lung) mucosa. Secretions from the mouth and nose, rather than scab material, are the most important source of human-to-human transmission. The initial infection in the oropharynx or respiratory tract produces neither symptoms nor local lesions, and patients are not infectious until an oropharyngeal enanthem appears at the end of the primary incubation periodScab material forms as the rash dries and usually consists of large fragments of cellular debris, with virions bound within a dense, fibrous mesh containing a large amount of the antiviral substance interferon.

Toxins

Toxins are the non-living products of micro-organisms. Although they are often subsumed under bioweapons agents, they represent a special category, sharing many characteristics with chemical warfare agents. Toxins can also be produced by chemical synthesis. Toxins, like chemical warfare agents, can only affect those exposed to the toxin and cannot produce transmissible diseases. Because they are non-living organisms, producing a large quantity of toxins requires more time than would be needed to make a similar quantity of other biological agents.

Examples of Toxins include: Saxitoxin (produced by blue green algae), Botulinum toxin (causes botulism), Ricin (derived from castor beans), Staphylococcal enterotoxin B (causes fever, vomiting, nausea)

Effects of botulinium toxin: Botulinum toxin, produced by the bacteria Clostridium botulinum, is the most poisonous substance known. The bacteria grows on, e.g., poorly preserved food and causes a severe form of food-poisoning (botulism). The incubation period is between one and three days after which the victim becomes ill with stomach pains, diarrhoea, disturbances to vision, giddiness and muscular weakness. The whole body including the respiratory musculature becomes paralyzed which leads to death by suffocation within a few days. http://www.opcw.nl/chemhaz/toxins.htm

Fungi

Fungi are almost entirely multicellular (with yeast, Saccharomyces cerviseae, being a prominent unicellular fungus), heterotrophic (deriving their energy from another organism, whether alive or dead), and usually having some cells with two nuclei (multinucleate, as opposed to the more common one, or uninucleate) per cell. Evolution of multicellular eukaryotes increased the size and complexity of organisms, allowing them to exploit the terrestrial habitat. First classified as plants, fungi are now considered different enough from plants to be placed in a separate kingdom. Fungi also are important crop parasites, causing loss of food plants, spoilage of food and some infectious diseases.

Examples of Fungi infectious diseases include: Aspergillosis, Blastomycosis, Candida, Coccidioidomycosis, Cryptococcosis, Histoplasmosis, Mucormycosis, Paracoccidioidomycosis, Sporotrichosis Effects of fungi: Isolated skin lesion(s), focal lesions of bone, central nervous system, visceral organs, and if you are a male, lesion in the genito-urinary system

Other anti-human agents, better known as anti-plant and anti-animal agents: Anti-Animal Biological Agents include: Aspergillus (poultry), Foot and Mouth Disease (cattle, pigs, sheep, goats), Heartwater (cattle, sheep, goats, deer), Newcastle Disease (poultry), Rinderpest (cattle)

Anti-Plant Biological Agents include: Rice Blast (fungus causing lesion on leaves), Stem Rust (fungal disease affecting cereal crops), Sugarbeet Curly Top Virus (dwarfed leaves and swollen veins), Tobacco Mosaic Virus (virus affectnig wide range of plants, stunted growth) http://gened.emc.maricopa.edu/bio/bio181/BIOBK/BioBookDiversity_4.html  

Deadly and Cheap

When compared to the cost of a nuclear weapons program, biological weapons are extremely cheap. It is estimated that 1 gram of toxin could kill 10 million people. A purified form of botulinum toxin is approximately 3 million times more potent than Sarin, a chemical nerve agent. As a comparison, a SCUD missile filled with botulinum toxin could affect an area of 3700 sq.km, an area 16 times greater than could be affected with Sarin.

It is important to note that while it is relatively cheap to produce the biological weapons agents in large quantities, sophisticated weapons are slightly more difficult to develop and produce. For example, when a missile is flying it gets very hot, biological agents are killed. Therefore, the missile has to be fitted with a cooling system. In addition, storing biological weapons agents requires much effort, due to the quick decay of many of these sorts of agents. However, as far as weapons of mass destruction are concerned, biological weapons are relatively cheap to develop and produce. In one analysis, the comparative cost of civilian (unprotected) casualties is "$2,000 per square kilometer with conventional weapons, $800 with nuclear weapons, $600 with nerve-gas weapons, and $1 with biological weapons." Not surprisingly, biological weapons have long since become known as the poor man's atom bomb.

Any nation with a reasonably advanced pharmaceutical and medical industry has the capability of mass producing biological weapons. This fact also leads to problems with determining what countries have programs. Anything from a piece of fruit to a ballistic missile could be used to deliver a biological weapon to a target. Along with this is the fact that with certain organisms, only a few particles would be needed to start an infection that could potentially cause an epidemic. Conventional weapons explode once and are finished. With a few particles of Hanta virus many thousands of people could become carriers that infect thousands more people.

A seed culture of anthrax bacteria could be grown to mass quantities in around 96 hours. The level of technology needed to do this kind of work is also much lower when compared to Nuclear weapons. Most of the techniques used can be found in textbooks and journals available worldwide. The information is not considered "hot" like certain kinds of nuclear information. The techniques are taught in undergraduate courses in Colleges and Universities worldwide.

2. When have biological weapons been used - a short history

The first recorded use of biological agents is the Romans using dead animals to foul the enemies water supply. This had the dual effects of decreasing enemy numbers and lowering morale.

1346-1347 - Mongols catapult corpses contaminated with plague over the walls into Kaffa (in Crimea), forcing besieged Genoans to flee. Some historians believe that this event was the cause of the epidemic of plague that swept across medieval Europe killing 25 million.

1710 - Russian troops allegedly use plague-infected corpses against Swedes 1767 - During the French and Indian Wars, the British give blankets used to wrap British smallpox victims to hostile Indian tribes

1916-1918 - German agents use anthrax and the equine disease glanders to infect livestock and feed for export to Allied forces. Incidents include the infection of Romanian sheep with anthrax and glanders for export to Russia, Argentinian mules with anthrax for export to Allied troops, and American horses and feed with glanders for export to France 1937 - Japan begins its offensive biological weapons program. Unit 731, the BW research and development unit, is located in Harbin, Manchuria. Over the course of the program, at least 10,000 prisoners are killed in Japanese experiments

1939 - Nomonhan Incident - Japanese poison Soviet water supply with intestinal typhoid bacteria at former Mongolian border. First use of biological weapons by Japanese

1940 - The Japanese drop rice and wheat mixed with plague-carrying fleas over China and Manchuria

1942 - U.S. begins its offensive biological weapons program and chooses Camp Detrick, Frederick, Maryland as its research and development site May,

1945 - Only known tactical use of BW by Germany. A large reservoir in Bohemia is poisoned with sewage (BW)28 September, 1950-February, 1951 - In a test of BW dispersal methods, biological simulants are sprayed over San Francisco June,

1966 - The United States conducts a test of vulnerability to covert BW attack by releasing a harmless biological simulant into the New York City subway system November 25,

1969 - President Nixon announces unilateral dismantlement of the U.S. offensive BW program

February 14, 1970 - President Nixon extends the dismantlement efforts to toxins, closing a loophole which might have allowed for their production

1978 - In a case of Soviet state-sponsored assassination, Bulgarian exile Georgi Markov, living in London, is stabbed with an umbrella that injects him with a tiny pellet containing ricin

April 2, 1979 - Outbreak of pulmonary anthrax in Sverdlovsk, Soviet Union.

1992- Russian president Boris Yeltsin acknowledges that the outbreak was caused by an accidental relase of anthrax spores from a Soviet military microbiological facility

1985-1991 - Iraq develops an offensive biological weapons capability including anthrax, botulium toxin, and aflatoxin.

3. Efforts to Ban Biological Weapons

Using biological and chemical weapons was condemned by international declarations and treaties, notably by the 1907 Hague Convention (IV) respecting the laws and customs of war on land. Efforts to strengthen this prohibition resulted in the conclusion, in 1925, of the Geneva Protocol which banned the use of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, usually referred to as chemical weapons, as well as the use of bacteriological methods of warfare. The latter are now understood to include not only bacteria, but also other biological agents, such as viruses or rickettsiae which were unknown at the time the Geneva Protocol was signed. (On 1 January 1997, 132 States were party to this Protocol.) However, the Geneva Protocol did not prohibit the development, production and stockpiling of chemical and biological weapons. Attempts to achieve a complete ban were made in the 1930s in the framework of the League of Nations, but with no success.

The prohibition of chemical and biological weapons appeared on the agenda of the Eighteen-Nation Committee on Disarmament in Geneva (now called the Conference on Disarmament)in 1968. One year later, the United Nations published an influential report on the problems of chemical and biological warfare, and the question received special attention at the UN General Assembly. The UN report concluded that certain chemical and biological weapons cannot be confined in their effects in space and time and might have grave and irreversible consequences for man (sic) and nature. This would apply to both the attacking and the attacked nations. Due to interest in the topic in the end of the 1960s, the Biological Weapons Convention was signed in 1972 and entered into force in 1975.

4. What is the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention?

The Biological Weapons Convention entered into force in March 1975 after 22 governments had ratified, and was the first multilateral disarmament treaty banning an entire category of weapons of mass destruction. The Convention, about four pages long, bans the development, production stockpiling, or acquisition of biological agents or toxins of any type or quantity that do not have protective, medical, or other peaceful purposes, or any weapons or means of delivery for such agents or toxins. Under the treaty, all such materiel is to be destroyed within nine months of the treaty's entry into force.

The Treaty has been ratified by 143 states and has review conferences every five years, the next one will be in November 2001.

5. The Convention has a number of inadequacies

Unlike the Chemical Weapons Convention that has an unprecedented on-site inspection provision, the Biological Weapons Convention has no verification provisions.

The Convention has not defined the prohibited items nor the targets to which the prohibitions relate. There exists, however, an authoritative definition of biological warfare agents formulated by the World Health organization (WHO). In a 1970 report the WHO described biological warfare agents as those that depend for their effects on multiplication within the target organism and are intended for use in war to cause disease or death in man (sic), animals or plants; they may be transmissible or non-transmissible. Toxins are poisonous products of organisms; unlike biological agents, they are inanimate and not capable of reproducing themselves. The Convention applies to all natural or artificially created toxins, "whatever their origin or method of production" (Article I). Thus, it covers toxins produced biologically, as well as those produced by chemical synthesis. Since toxins are chemicals by nature, their inclusion in the BW Convention was a step towards the projected ban on chemical weapons.

The term "other peaceful purposes" in the Convention has remained unclear, a reason why the BW weapons control has been so difficult. One can assume that it includes scientific experimentation. Under the BW Convention, the prohibition to develop, produce, stockpile or otherwise acquire or retain biological agents and toxins is not absolute. It applies only to types and to quantities that have no justification for prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes. The stipulation that any development, production, stockpiling or retention of biological warfare agents or toxins must be justified and does not carry sufficient weight. Retention, production or acquisition by other means of certain quantities of biological agents and toxins to be used for hostile purposes may thus continue, and there may be testing in laboratories and even in the field which may lead to the development of more progressive and sophisticated biological agents for the purpose of warfare.

There are no provisions in the BW Convention restricting biological research activities. This circumstance and the express authorization to engage in production (for peaceful purposes) of biological agents and toxins that may be used in warfare create a risk that the provisions of the Convention will be circumvented. There are no agreed standards or criteria for the quantities of agents or toxins that may be needed by different States for the different purposes recognized by the Convention. The parties are not even obliged to declare the types and amounts of agents or toxins they possess and the use they make of them.

6. What is the Ad Hoc Group and what is it doing?

The Ad Hoc Group is working to strengthen the BWC with a verification protocol.

The mandate to negotiate a Protocol on verification came from the 1994 Special Conference of States Parties to the BWC. The revelation that some states parties had been discovered to have developed covert biological weapons programmes added to the recognition that the effectiveness and implementation of the BWC needed to be strengthened. A group of governmental experts (VEREX) met from 1992-1993 to consider verification measures from a mostly technical perspective . Negotiations on a Protocol began in earnest in January 1995 in the current Ad Hoc Group (AHG) format. The group meets several times a year for two to four weeks each time and has now met for a total of about 60 weeks.

The group's work is to be completed by the Fifth Review Conference. This Review Conference will take place in November-December of 2001, preceded by a Preparatory Commission in April.

By July 1997, the AHG had before it the first draft of the verification protocol, the so called rolling text, which it has since been negotiating on. The rate of progress in removing brackets (which are the indicators of disagreement) has varied over the last three years, and slowed down recently. Only the most contentious issues in the Protocol are left unresolved, and therefore discussion now centers on the question of when a Chair's text (i.e. a text without brackets, which shows the possible final shape of the protocol) should be produced.

7. What do Individual Governments have to do after they sign?

Under the future Protocol, States have to initially declare past offensive and defensive BW programmes. They have then to declare annually dual-use capabilities, such as facilities with high biological containment, large production facilities, facilities working with certain very dangerous agents, and facilities working in the national biodefence programmes. These declarations will randomly be checked by on-site visits. If there are ambiguities in the declarations, the future organization or individual states can request a clarification, including a clarification visit. If a state suspects that another state is violating the BTWC, i.e. possesses or uses BW, it can request a short-notice challenge investigation. Under the Protocol, States also have to implement national legislation prohibiting their citizens from engaging in activities prohibited by the BTWC worldwide. Each State will have to set up a national authority which is responsible for implementing the protocol and cooperating with the future organization for the Prohibition of Biological and Toxin Weapons.

8. Countries Suspected of Possessing Biological Weapons

i) Russia
As revealed by Yeltsin, the Soviet Union maintained an offensive biological weapons program from 1972 until 1992. Yeltsin signed a decree in April 1992 to terminate its offensive research, dismantled experimental biological agent production lines, closed a biological weapons testing facility, cut the number of personnel in the program by fifty percent and the funding by thirty percent, and submitted information about its biological weapons program to the UN. According to its declaration, Russia maintained an offensive research and development program until March 1992 that worked with anthrax, tularemia, brucellosis, plague, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, typhus, and Q-fever. With respect to toxins, Russia claimed that the only natural toxin studied in its program was botulinum toxin. Apparently, Russian scientists developed a genetically manipulated strain of the plague.

ii)Iraq
Iraq had advanced facilities studying anthrax, botulism, brucellosis, tularemia, and gas gangrene organisms were found alongside a wide array of potential delivery systems from aerial bombs to surface-to-air-missiles(SAM's). For a complete timeline of Iraq's WMD program, see The Arms Control Association

iii) United States
On 14 February 1970, the United States also formally renounced the production, stockpiling and use of toxins for war purposes. It stated that military programmes for biological agents and toxins would be confined to research and development for defensive purposes

iv)UK
Great Britain abandoned its offensive biological weapons capabilities in the late 1950s.

v)China
China, a member of the BWC since 1984, is believed to have maintained an offensive biological weapons program throughout most of the 1980s that included "development, production, stockpiling or other acquisition or maintenance of biological warfare agents

vi) Egypt
Egypt, a signatory but not a member of the BWC, has a program of military-applied research in the area of biological weapons dating back to the 1960s. No publicly available data to date indicates that Egypt has produced its own biological agents. Bilateral cooperation between US and Egypt has resulted in a military-medical laboratory in Egypt, recognized as one of the region's leading medical-biological centers, equipped with the latest equipment and staffed with highly qualified American specialists. The research conducted by this laboratory is highly classified. The US assessment is that it remains likely that Egypt continues to maintain a capability to conduct biological warfare.

vii) Iran
Iran, which joined the CWC on 3 November 1997, has been a member of the BWC since 1973. Iran conducts legitimate biomedical research at various institutes, which are suspected of involvement in this biological weapons program. The Iranian military has used medical, education, and scientific research organizations for many aspects of biological agent procurement, research, and production. The US finding is that Iran probably has produced biological agents and apparently has weaponized a small quantity of those agents.

viii) Syria
Syria has signed but not ratified the BWC. Israel has expressed concerns that Syria has biological agents for contaminating drinking water. However, no reliable information is available about the existence of biological weapons in Syria or a directed program for the creation of an offensive potential in the biological realm. Syria nonetheless remains among those countries that the United States believes to be developing an offensive biological warfare capability

ix)) Israel
Israel's national biological weapons program is unknown. An Israeli biological weapons program is likely to be patterned after those formerly maintained by the United States and the former Soviet Union. In other words, the agents likely to be involved in an Israeli program are anthrax, botulinum toxin, tularemia, plague, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, and Q-fever. Similarly, Israeli delivery systems are likely to mirror those developed by the United States, namely spray systems or missile warheads and submunitions. Israel is one of the few states that has not signed the BWC.

x) Libya
Libya is thought to be attempting to weaponize biological agents, although little is known about Libya's biological weapons program. While Libya has been a member of the BWC since 1972, there is information indicating that it is engaged in initial testing of biological weapons. Presently, Libyans are expressing interest in information on work overseas involving biological agents. Libya has also failed to submit a confidence-building data declaration to the UN. According to the US assessment, Libya is seeking to acquire the capability to develop and produce biological agents.

xi)North Korea
North Korea has been a member of the BWC since 1987. During the early 1960s, North Korea initiated an offensive biological warfare program. Presently, North Korea is engaged in applied military-biological research at universities, medical institutes, and specialized research centers. Research at these centers involves pathogens for malignant anthrax, cholera, and bubonic plague. Evidence indicates that North Korea has been testing biological weapons on its island territories.

xii)Taiwan
Taiwan, which joined the BWC in 1973, is another country suspected of proliferating both chemical and biological weapons. Taiwan is said not to have biological weapons, but it continues to manifest an active interest in conducting biological research of a military-applied nature. Taiwan has a significant scientific and technical base in microbiology and a large number of skilled biotechnology specialists, mostly trained in America and Western Europe. Taiwan is moving to upgrade its biotechnology sector, which makes wide use of technologies basic to the production of biological weapons.

9. How can biological weapons be defended against?

Biological defense may be divided into the following categories: prevention, protection, detection, treatment, and decontamination.

Prevention

Prevention may take several forms. In the case of biological warfare, international disarmament and inspection regimes may deter production and dissemination of biological warfare agents. Intelligence assets may indicate potential threats and allow for preventative action to be undertaken.

Protection

Forms of protection against biological warfare agents are limited in capacity. Protective suits, clothing, gas masks and filters may provide limited protection for short periods of time. However, the persistence of biological agents such as anthrax makes such protections mainly useful for military personnel and first responders. Anthrax can remain active and potentially lethal for at least 40 years. (source: Biological Warfare: A Historical Perspective) It should be noted that anthrax is an exception, as most other agents do not live that long. Protection (as detection and treatment) of Biological Warfare is the establishment and maintenance of a good health care system. In addition, vaccination is a form of protection, which may provide substantial protection against naturally occurring agents, although vaccines often provide limited or no protection against genetically engineered variants designed to defeat such vaccines.

Detection

During the Gulf War, US and allied forces suffered from a lack of reliable biological agent detection systems. Subsequently, a number of detection systems have been developed. Often it takes from a few hours to a few days to detect exposure to a biological weapon. However, with advances in biotechnology will help develop improved and quicker detectors. Current detectors include: SMART (Sensitive Membrane Antigen Rapid Test) JBPDS (Joint Biological Point Detection System) BIDS (Biological Integrated Detection System) IBAD (Interim Biological Agent Detector) (source: Biological Warfare and Detection Capabilities) Treatment Treatment options after infection depend on whether or not the infectious agent is identified. If not identified, massive doses of antibiotics may be given in hopes that something may work. Again, treatment of victims of biological warfare largely depends on the establishment and maintenance of a good health care system. Decontamination Unlike chemical weapons, which disperse over time, biological agents may grow and multiply over time. Anthrax can remain active in the soil for at least 40 years and is highly resistant to eradication. (Source: Biological Warfare: A Historical Perspective) However, the anthrax contaminated Gruinard Island in the UK was decontaminated - decontamination is possible, using chemicals, heat or rays (UV).

10. What should WILPF groups do to support this treaty?

WILPF can serve an important role in raising awareness about biological warfare. For example, there is the sign-on initiative by The Sunshine Project (www.sunshine-project.org). The principle challenge in addressing biological warfare is to expose and prevent the misuse of biosciences. Therefore, interaction with environmental and consumer protection groups in relevant fields would be useful. Once the Protocol exists, it will be very important to lobby for ratification, although this will be an arduous fight, especially in the United States.

11. Other Conventions, Laws and Agreements Relating to Biological Warfare and Biological Weapons

1. Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare (The Geneva Protocol): Opened for Signature: June 17, 1925, Entered into Force: February 8, 1928 The Geneva Protocol prohibits the use of all asphyxiationg, poisonous, or other gases; all similar liquids, materials, or devices; and all methods of bacteriological warfare during war.

2. UK-US-Russian Joint Statement on Biological Weapons, Meeting Held in Moscow, September 10-11, 1992 In a joint statement issued at the conclusion of a trilateral meeting, the governments of the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Russian Federation affirmed their commitment to full compliance with the 1972 BWC. In order to address concerns about compliance, the states agreed on reciprocal measures to remove any ambiguities. Measures include reciprocal visits to military and non-military biological facilities, and the convening of expert groups to ensure continued compliance. U.S. and U.K. officials visited Russian sites in October 1993 and January 1994. In February and March 1994, Russian officials visited three facilities in the United States and one in Britain.

3. Environmental Modification Convention, entered into force on October 5, 1978. In August 1975, the chief representatives of the U.S. and the Soviet delegations to the Conference of the Committee on Disarmament (CCD) tabled, in parallel, identical draft texts of a "Convention on the Prohibition of Military or any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques." The Convention defines environmental modification techniques as changing -- through the deliberate manipulation of natural processes -- the dynamics, composition or structure of the earth, including its biota, lithosphere, hydro-sphere, and atmosphere, or of outer space. The Convention entered into force on October 5, 1978, when the 20th state to sign the Convention deposited its instrument of ratification. The Convention entered into force for the United States on January 17, 1980, when the U.S. instrument of ratification was deposited in New York.

4. The Hague Convention (IV), Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, signed at The Hague, 18 October 1907. Section II: Hostilities. Chapter I: Means of Injuring the Enemy, Sieges, and Bombardments Art. 22. The right of belligerents to adopt means of injuring the enemy is not unlimited. Art. 23. In addition to the prohibitions provided by special Conventions, it is especially forbidden - (a) To employ poison or poisoned weapons.

5. Chemical Weapons Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction, was opened for signature in 1993, and entered into force in 1997. On January 13, 1993, in Paris, 130 countries signed the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) to ban the entire class of chemical weapons. Many of those nations have since ratified it. In this country, debate continues on the strategic implications of the convention, as drafted, and whether it is in the U.S. national security interest. This convention covers the toxins section in biological weapons

12. Sources on biological weapons

Acronym Institute: Biological Weapons Convention http://www.acronym.org.uk/bwc/index.htm

Arms Control Association: Biological Weapons: Documents, News, and Analysis http://www.armscontrol.org/subject/bw/

Australia Group: Relationship with the Biological Weapons http://www.australiagroup.net/agbwc.htm

Basic: A Guide to Biological Weapons Control (October 2001) http://www.basicint.org/biobrochure.htm

Canadian Security Intelligence Service. Report # 2000/05: BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS PROLIFERATION (June 9, 2000) http://www.csis-scrs.gc.ca/eng/miscdocs/200005_e.html

Carnegie Endowment for Internaitonal Peace. Proliferation News and Resources http://www.ceip.org/files/nonprolif/weapons/weapon.asp?ID=1&weapon=biological

Center for Defence and International Security Studies: Biological Weapons http://www.cdiss.org/bw.htm

Center for Defense Information's Chemical and Biological Weapons Proliferation Web Site http://www.cdi.org/issues/cbw/

Center for Nonproliferaton Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies: Chemical and Biological Weapons Resource Page http://cns.miis.edu/research/cbw.htm
          *Including: Federal Agencies and Programs, Federal Publications, Think Tanks and Non-Governmental Organizations, Journals

Federation of American Scientists: Chemical and Biological Arms Control Program http://www.fas.org/bwc/

Henry L. Stimson Center:. Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferat ion Project http://www.stimson.org/cwc/

John Hopkins University: Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies http://www.hopkins-biodefense.org/pages/library/published.html

Pugwash Onlice: Chemical and Biological Weapons: Reports and Statements http://www.pugwash.org/reports/cbw/cbwlist.htm

SIPRI: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute: The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention http://projects.sipri.se/cbw/docs/bw-btwc-mainpage.html

SIPRI: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute: Educational Module on Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation http://cbw.sipri.se/

Sunshine Project: Research and facts about biological weapons and biotechnology http://www.sunshine-project.org/

United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR): Biological Weapons: from the BWC to Biotech http://www.unog.ch/unidir/e-df0-4.htm

University of Bradford, Peace Studies Department: Preventing Biological Warfare: Strengthening the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/sbtwc/

Verification Research, Training and Information Centre (VERTIC), Promoting effective verification of the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention
http://www.vertic.org/programmes/BWC.html

13. Meetings of States Parties to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention

2008 Meeting of Experts, 18–22 August 2008

Chair: Ambassador Georgi Avramchev (The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia)
Daily Reports by Richard Guthrie for the Bioweapons Prevention Project and the Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy

Meeting of States Parties, 10–14 December 2007

The Meeting of States Parties was chaired by Ambassador Masood Khan of Pakistan. In accordance with the decision of the Sixth Review Conference, the Meeting of States Parties considered the work of the Meeting of Experts (20-24 August 2007) to discuss, and promote common understanding and effective action on:

1. Ways and means to enhance national implementation, including enforcement of national legislation, strengthening of national institutions and coordination among national law enforcement institutions.

2. Regional and sub-regional cooperation on implementation of the Convention.