Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention of 1972
The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC), established in 1972, is a key international treaty aimed at prohibiting the development, production, and stockpiling of biological and toxin weapons. Following the widespread devastation caused by chemical warfare in World War I, the treaty emerged in a context marked by a growing awareness of the need for international regulations on such weapons. Although the convention called for the destruction of existing biological weapons starting in 1975, its enforcement has been challenged by the dual-use nature of biological research, where materials intended for peaceful purposes could also be misused for weapons development.
Efforts to establish verification measures have faced obstacles, particularly during the Cold War era, when nations were reluctant to permit international inspections of military facilities. Significant incidents, such as the 1979 anthrax outbreak in the Soviet Union and the anthrax letters attacks in the U.S. in 2001, underscored the ongoing risks associated with biological agents. While the BTWC allows for the retention of certain biological agents for medical purposes, it seeks to mitigate the risks of misuse and ensure global security against potential bioterrorism. Ultimately, the effectiveness of the convention relies on the commitment of its signatories to uphold its principles and actively manage biological resources to prevent misuse.
Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention of 1972
Date: Opened for signature April 10, 1972; entered into force March 26, 1975
The Convention: International agreement designed to ban the development, production, and stockpiling of a variety of biological weapons.
Significance: Seeking to increase international security, the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972 outlawed all biological weapons and delivery systems for such weapons. The openness required by this treaty can assist forensic scientists who investigate crimes that involve such organisms.
Early in human history, people in certain hunting societies learned how to use plant or animal poisons to make their weapons more deadly. As human beings gained more detailed knowledge of diseases and biological processes, they developed other, more efficient, means of using biological agents to infect or kill their enemies. After more than one million casualties in World War I, mainly from chemical weapons, the international community adopted the Geneva Protocol in 1925; this agreement limited the first use of chemical or biological weapons in future wars. The method of conducting warfare was thus recognized as being subject to international law.
The United States researched and developed biological weapons on a large scale until 1969, when President Richard M. Nixon ordered a halt to these programs and instructed the Department of Defense to design a plan to dispose of the weapons. Around the same time, the British govenment proposed international negotiations on banning biological weapons. In 1971, an agreement was reached, and in 1972, the process of signing and ratification of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction began. According to the convention, also known as the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention or simply the Biological Weapons Convention, biological weapons were supposed to be destroyed beginning in 1975. This was at the height of the Cold War, however, and verification procedures that required countries to allow international observers into their military facilities were not acceptable to many signatories. Enforcement of the provisions of the convention was impossible because no system existed for verifying that countries were adhering to those provisions.
Adding to the enforcement problem since the convention entered into force in March, 1975, has been the fact that virtually everything that is needed to develop biological weapons also has a peaceful use. The existence of sealed biological research facilities, for instance, does not necessarily indicate that biological weapons research is being conducted. Sealing such a facility is a common procedure to keep contamination, in either direction, from affecting a biology experiment. Those who seek to enforce the terms of the treaty must use indirect means to verify that nations are following those terms. A series of Review Conferences have been held to clarify certain aspects of the treaty and generally assist with its implementation in an ever-changing world. The Fourth Review Conference directed a working group to develop a protocol for a mandatory multinational verification process. In 2002, at the last meeting prior to the protocol’s going to the Fifth Review Conference for adoption, the United States effectively vetoed the proposed protocol as not being strong enough to guarantee that it would be completely effective.
Posttreaty Incidents
Although the Biological Weapons Convention allows countries to keep small quantities of biological agents for medical or defensive purposes, the treaty prohibits active work on the development of such agents. Many people were surprised when, in April, 1979, an outbreak of anthrax killed more than sixty people in the Soviet city of Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg, Russia). Soviet authorities denied any relationship of the outbreak to biological weapons, but given that anthrax is a commonly produced biological agent and the disease has been virtually wiped out, the rest of the world was certain that the anthrax deaths had resulted from an accident at a biological research facility. Without a mandatory inspection process in place, however, international observers were unable to investigate the situation fully and determine the cause of the outbreak with complete certainty.
The possible use of biological agents by terrorists was dramatically demonstrated in September and October, 2001, when letters containing anthrax spores were mailed to five news media operations in New York City and Boca Raton, Florida, and later to two U.S. senators. As a result of these attacks, twenty-two people became ill, five of whom died. Although law-enforcement investigators were eventually able to track the letters to a specific mailbox in New Jersey, the case remains unsolved. Forensic scientists have spent countless hours trying to determine the source of the anthrax, focusing on the slight differences that distinguish the various samples of anthrax spores stored at different locations. One early analysis indicated that the anthrax used in the attacks came from a U.S. military base, although this was never officially confirmed, and dozens of sites have been searched.
As a result of the possible contamination of multiple sites owing to the method the terrorist used, sending the anthrax spores through the mail, the U.S. government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars cleaning up various locations, especially postal facilities. The fact that even after years of intensive investigation the perpetrator of the crime has not been found indicates how difficult it is to track weapons of this type. If the signatories of the Biological Weapons Convention follow the intent of the treaty and reduce the amount of stored biological materials available for misuse by terrorists and closely guard what remains, incidents such as the 2001 anthrax attacks may not happen in the future.
Bibliography
Cirincione, Joseph, Jon B. Wolfsthal, and Miriam Rajkumar. Deadly Arsenals: Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Threats. Rev. ed. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2005. Provides an overview of the range of chemical weapon threats facing the United States.
Gillemin, Jeanne. Biological Weapons: From the Invention of State-Sponsored Programs to Contemporary Bioterrorism. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006. Discusses biological weapon programs from before World War II through the 1990’s, with special attention to the remnants of those programs that later became “available” to terrorists.
Hoover Institution on War. The New Terror: Facing the Threat of Biological and Chemical Weapons. Palo Alto, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1999. Covers a wide range of issues, including the constitutional constraints on U.S. law enforcement in combating chemical weapons and suggestions for reducing the damage from such weapons.
Lederberg, Joshua, ed. Biological Weapons: Limiting the Threat. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999. Examines the dangers posed by biological weapons as well as the ways in which the United States has tried to decrease those dangers.
Tucker, Jonathan B., ed. Toxic Terror: Assessing Terrorist Use of Chemical and Biological Weapons. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2000. Presents twelve case studies of the use of chemical and biological agents by terrorist groups. Identifies terrorists’ patterns of behavior and discusses strategies to combat them.