Global Beat Syndicate: Making Asia a Priority, Not a Threat

By Seth Brugger

November 28, 2001.

WASHINGTON -- With the anthrax attacks in the United States still fresh in our minds, the need to stop the spread of biological weapons is more apparent than ever. At an international conference that began last week in Geneva, the United States put forth a set of proposals to improve upon the enforcement of the troubled germ warfare treaty. The U.S. package is a good beginning but falls short of what is necessary to combat germ weapons.

In effect since 1975, the Biological Weapons Convention plays a vital role in international security by outlawing the development and possession of germ weapons. But the treaty lacks measures to ascertain that states are complying with its terms and has been flagrantly violated in the past. Indeed, at the conference Washington accused North Korea, Iraq, and others of breaching the treaty. The accord is clearly in trouble and needs stronger provisions to bolster its utility.

The U.S. proposals contain several common-sense ideas to accomplish this goal. For instance, it would require members of the Biological Weapons Convention to enact domestic legislation criminalizing treaty-prohibited activities. With about half the treaty’s signatory nations lacking such legislation, provisions like this are certainly needed. The U.S. proposals also contains some practical nonproliferation measures, such as requiring states to secure and regulate access to dangerous micro-organisms and to explore national oversight of “high-risk” experiments.

Washington is presenting its proposal as an alternative to an internationally negotiated protocol that it rejected in July that had been over six years in the making. That agreement aimed to make it harder for countries to cheat on the convention by establishing an international body to conduct inspections of suspicious facilities, among other things.

The U.S. package is not an adequate replacement for the protocol, which Washington alone opposed despite widespread international support. Absent from the U.S. proposal is the protocol’s plan to establish the international organization. In addition to conducting challenge inspections, this body would have had the power to collect declarations of facilities relevant to the treaty and to perform routine, nonintrusive “visits” to declared facilities. Such measures are necessary for a more robust regime that would help keep watch over treaty members and hold them accountable for potentially illegal activities. Furthermore, unlike the protocol, the U.S. plan would lack the force of international law.

Instead of embracing rigorous nonproliferation measures to help curtail germ weapons proliferation, the Bush administration appears to place more stock in reactive biodefense activities. For example, the United States is reported to have undertaken secret biodefense projects, such as developing a biological-agent production facility to demonstrate how easy it would be for others to construct such a plant. It also apparently produced a model biological bomb it feared was for sale on the international market. Washington rejected the protocol, in part, to protect defensive projects such as these from international scrutiny, but that approach is unnecessary and only breeds suspicion.

Combating biological weapons is difficult, and the United States and the international community need every tool available to fight biological arms, including both biodefense work and nonproliferation measures. The administration must do a better job at striking a balance that will allow it to pursue both areas successfully. Halting biological weapons proliferation, like the global war on terrorism, requires effective, multilateral action based on the rule of law.

Seth Brugger is the managing editor of Arms Control Today, a monthly foreign policy journal published by the Washington-based Arms Control Association.

Copyright 2001, Global Beat Syndicate, 418 Lafayette Street, Suite 554, New York, NY 10003 http://www.nyu.edu/globalbeat/syndicate.