Strengthening the Biological Weapons Convention
Briefing Paper No 20:
Visits : An Essential Portfolio
Executive Summary
Graham S. Pearson
Series Editors, Graham S. Pearson and Malcolm R. Dando
Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford
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This Briefing Paper considers the relationship between the various types of visits being proposed, identifies their benefits and shows how together they form an essential portfolio for the future BTWC Protocol regime.
It is now evident that visits are only concerned with ensuring that the obligations of the Protocol are met and are not associated with addressing concerns about compliance with the Convention, and in particular with Article I of the Convention. Any such concerns about compliance with the Convention will be addressed in the Protocol through Consultation, Clarification and Cooperation and, should these not resolve the matter, through Investigations. Visits are thus non-confrontational and non-accusatory. Their quite distinct non-confrontational nature has been made clearer by the inclusion of visits in the Follow-Up after Submission of Declarations section of Article III Compliance Measures.
RANDOMLY-SELECTED VISITS (TRANSPARENCY VISITS)
Transparency visits are non accusatory and have no association whatsoever with any consideration as to whether or not the particular declared facility being visited is in compliance. They will clearly be infrequent, short and carried out by a small team with a mandate primarily to confirm that the declaration for a declared site is consistent with the obligations under the Protocol. In addition, if so requested by the visited State Party, the visiting team will provide technical advice and information or implement technical assistance and cooperation activities. Given that declarations will not include commercial proprietary or national security information, transparency visits carried out solely by full-time staff of the future BTWC Organization will present no risk to either commercial proprietary information or to national security information.
Transparency visits although infrequent and entailing the use of only a small amount of the resources of the BTWC Organization are highly effective in ensuring that declarations are accurate and complete thereby ensuring that their contributions to transparency and building confidence are maximised. Transparency visits will also contribute to enhancing technical assistance, cooperation and exchange thereby bringing direct benefits to the visited State Party. They are thus a highly cost effective means of strengthening the Convention and building confidence in compliance.
CLARIFICATION VISITS
Clarification visits are concerned with implementation of the Protocol through promoting accurate and complete declarations. They are not addressing concerns about compliance with the Convention. They bring significant benefits to the Protocol:
a. First, States Parties will be given an incentive to ensure that their initial declarations are made in a timely way, that their declarations are accurate and complete and that all facilities which should be declared are indeed declared;
b. Second, over time declaration clarification procedures, including clarification visits, will give States Parties an increased confidence in the accuracy and completeness of declarations as ambiguities, uncertainties, anomalies or omissions in declarations will have been successfully addressed thereby increasing transparency and building confidence in compliance; and,
c. Finally, a would-be violator of the BTWC would be very unlikely to carry out prohibited activities at either a declared facility or at one which should have been declared as that facility might be the subject of a clarification visit initiated either by the Technical Secretariat or at the request of another State Party.
Consequently, clarification visits, although likely to decrease in number over time, entailing the use of only a small amount of the resources of the BTWC Organization are highly effective in ensuring that States Parties make their initial declarations and that declarations are indeed accurate and complete thereby increasing the contribution made by declarations to transparency and building confidence in compliance. They consequently complement randomly-selected visits and are a highly cost effective means of strengthening the Convention and building confidence in compliance.
VOLUNTARY VISITS
There is a clear role for voluntary visits to assist States Parties in compiling their declarations. As such visits directly contribute to the implementation of the Protocol regime it is considered that the costs of such visits should be borne by the Organization. Voluntary visits can also assist in implementing the assistance and cooperation provisions of the Protocol; as their contribution to the Protocol regime is less direct, the costs might be shared between the Organization and the State Party. Visits at the invitation of States during the declaration clarification procedure would effectively short-cut the normal procedure and thus contribute directly to improving the efficiency of the Organization; the costs of such visits should be borne by the Organization. Visits at the invitation of States for other purposes, such as building confidence in regard to dual-use materials and equipment, should be borne by the State Party.
CONCLUSIONS
There are strong arguments for a portfolio of different types of visits which are all non-confrontational and are concerned with achieving the efficient and effective implementation of the Protocol. It is very clear that a regime comprising only of declarations and investigations will be ineffective and will not meet the objective of establishing a regime which over time builds confidence and trust between States Parties to the BTWC that they are in compliance with that Convention. In such a limited regime, declarations would fall into disrepute as errors would not be corrected and there would be no incentive to States parties to ensure that their declarations were both complete and accurate.
The need is for a portfolio of visits comprising basically three types:
a. Transparency (randomly-selected) visitsb. Declaration clarification visits
c. Voluntary visits -- which fall into several categories:
- (i) assistance in compiling individual facility and national declarations- (ii) resolve any ambiguities related to declarations
- (iii) further the cooperation and assistance provisions of the Protocol
- (iv) to resolve a particular concern
The requirement for most of these apart from transparency visits can be expected to decrease over time. The Protocol needs to accommodate a flexible portfolio which should realistically accommodate about 100 visits a year based on the probable size of the BTWCO.