Introduction

by Graham S Pearson and Malcolm R Dando

1. The Fourth Review Conference of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention will be held inGeneva from 25 November to 6 December 1996¹. This briefing book has been prepared by variousinternational experts and edited by us with the aim of helping States Parties prepare for the ReviewConference. It results from a joint project between the Quaker UN Office in Geneva and theUniversity of Bradford Department of Peace Studies which has been been funded by the JosephRowntree Charitable Trust.

2. The provisional agenda for the Fourth Review Conference was agreed at the Preparatory Committee meeting1 held in Geneva on 9 - 10 April 1996 as being the agenda for the Third Review Conference with the inclusion of a new agenda item 12 entitled:

12. Consideration of the work of the Ad Hoc Group established by the Special Conference in 1994.

Consequently the principal substantive elements of the agenda for the Fourth Review Conference are:

10. Review of the operation of the Convention as provided for in its Article XII

a. General Debate
b. Articles I - XV
c. Preambular paragraphs and purposes of the Convention

11. Consideration of issues identified in the review of Article XII contained in the Final Declaration of the Third Review Conference and possible follow-up action.

together with the new Agenda item 12 reproduced above.

3. This briefing package has been prepared so as to address each of these substantive elements in turn. Individual papers consider each Article of the Convention in turn, then the preambular paragraphs, the issues identified in the review of Article XII at the Third Review Conference and then finally the work of the Ad Hoc Group established by the Special Conference in 1994. A similar approach has been adopted throughout: each paper starts by recapping on the outcome of the Third Review Conference in regard to the subject of the particular paper and then reporting factually on the developments that have taken place during the past five years. The key issues that States Parties are likely to consider at the Fourth Review Conference are then identified and language for the Final Declaration of the Fourth Review Conference suggested. Each paper includes references as appropriate. For ease of reference, the text of the Convention is included as Appendix I, the Final Declaration of the Third Review Conference as Appendix II and the Annex to the Final Declaration on Confidence-Building Measures as Appendix III.

page 4

General Overview

4. The Third Review Conference took place in Geneva from 9 - 27 September 19912, less than six months after the end of the Gulf Conflict which had resulted in the setting up of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) on Iraq under UN Security Council Resolution 687(1991)³ which requires the removal or destruction of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and the setting up of measures to prevent their reconstitution. Since the Third Review Conference there have been a number of significant developments relevant to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention:

a. Progress has been made first to evaluate potential verification measures for the Convention from a scientific and technical viewpoint (VEREX)⁴ and then following the request of a majority of States Parties to hold a Special Conference⁵, an Ad Hoc Group has been mandated "to consider appropriate measures, including possible verification measures, and draft proposals to strengthen the Convention, to be included, as appropriate, in a legally binding instrument, to be submitted for the consideration of the States Parties."

b. The United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) on Iraq has made progress in disclosing the Iraqi biological weapons programme. By October 1995, UNSCOM had determined⁶ that Iraq had produced large quantities of biological warfare agents and had filled a variety of weapon systems including aerial bombs and missile warheads.

c. President Yeltsin of Russia in April 1992 had stated that the Former Soviet Union had continued an offensive biological weapons programme until 1992. A Trilateral Agreement between the UK, US and Russia issued in September 1992⁷ initiated a process aimed at building confidence that the Russian offensive programme had terminated.

5. The broader international security scene has seen the indefinite extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in April 1995 and the opening for signature of the Chemical Weapons Convention in January 1993. This will enter into force 180 days after the 65th State has lodged its instrument of ratification with the United Nations; as of 1 September 1996, 61 States have done so and it is likely that the required number of 65 ratifications will be achieved soon.

6. There is also an increased international awareness of the potential costs of disease; the World Health Assembly in 1995 agreed a resolution⁸ requesting the Director General of the WHO "to establish strategies enabling rapid national and international action to investigate and to combat infectious disease outbreaks and epidemics" . In 1996, the WHO has issued its World Health Report 1996⁹ in which the Director General says that this "shows that we also stand on the brink of a global crisis in infectious diseases. No country is safe from them. No country can any longer afford to ignore their threat."

7. As biological warfare is the deliberate use of disease against humans, animals or plants, it is clear that it is in the interest of all States Parties to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention to take the opportunity offered by the Fourth Review Conference to strengthen the Convention. The briefing book is intended to aid this process.

Footnotes

1 United Nations, Preparatory Committee of the States Parties to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction, BWC/CONF. IV/PC/2, 12 April 1996.

2 United Nations, The Third Review Conference of the States Parties to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction, Geneva, 9-27 September 1991, BWC/CONF.III/23, Geneva 1992.

3 United Nations, Security Council Resolution, S/RES/687 (1991), 3 April 1991

4 United Nations, Ad Hoc Group of Governmental Experts to Identify and Examine Potential Verification Measures from a Scientific and Technical Standpoint, Report BWC/CONF.III/VEREX/9, Geneva 1993.

5 United Nations, Special Conference of the States Parties to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction, Final Report, BWC/SPCONF/1 Geneva, 19Ð30 September 1994.

6 United Nations, Eighth report of the Secretary-General on the status of the implementation of the plan for the ongoing monitoring and verification of Iraq's compliance with relevant parts of section C of Security Council resolution 687(1991), S/1995/864, 11 October 1995.

7 US Department of State, Office of Assistant Secretary/Spokesman, Joint US/UK/Russian Statement on Biological Weapons, Statement by Richard Boucher, Spokesman, 14 September 1992.

8 World Health Assembly Resolution 48.13, Communicable disease prevention and control: new, emerging, and re-emerging infectious diseases, in Resolutions and Decisions, Forty-Eighth World Health Assembly, 1 -12 May 1995, WHA48/1995/REC/1, World Health Organisation, Geneva, 1995.

9World Health Organisation, The World Health Report 1996, Fighting disease, Fostering development, ISBN 92 4 156182 3, Geneva, 1996.

Click here to return to the Contents Page

The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention Database forms part of the Project on Strengthening the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention and Preventing Biological Warfare, which is based in the Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, UK.

Updated 12 November 1998.