BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS CONVENTION (BWC)

The Biological Weapons Convention (more properly but less widely known as The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention) is an international agreement that prohibits the development and stockpiling of biological weapons. The language of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) describes biological weapons as "repugnant to the conscience of mankind." Formulated in 1972, the treaty has been signed (as of June 2002) by more than 159 countries; 141 countries have formally ratified the BWC.

The BWC broadly prohibits the development of pathogens—disease-causing microorganisms such as viruses and bacteria—and biological toxins that do not have established prophylactic merit (i.e., no ability to serve a protective immunological role), beneficial industrial use, or use in medical treatment.

The United States renounced the first-use of biological weapons and restricted future weapons research programs to issues concerning defensive responses (e.g., immunization, detection, etc.), by executive order in 1969.

Although the BWC disarmament provisions stipulated that biological weapons stockpiles were to have been destroyed by 1975, most Western intelligence agencies openly question whether all stockpiles have been destroyed. Despite the fact that it was a signatory party to the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, the former Soviet Union maintained a well-funded and high-intensity biological weapons program throughout the 1970s and 1980s, producing and stockpiling biological weapons including anthrax and smallpox agents. US intelligence agencies openly raise doubt as to whether successor Russian biological weapons programs have been completely dismantled. In June 2002, traces of biological and chemical weapon agents were found in Uzbekistan on a military base used by U.S. troops fighting in Afghanistan. Early analysis dates and attributes the source of the contamination to former Soviet Union or successor Russian biological and chemical weapons programs that utilized the base.

As of 2002, intelligence estimates compiled from various agencies provide indications that more than two dozen countries are actively involved in the development of biological weapons. The US Office of Technology Assessment and the United States Department of State have identified a list of potential enemy states developing biological weapons. Such potentially hostile nations include Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, North Korea, and China.

The BWC prohibits the offensive weaponization of biological agents (e.g., anthrax spores). The BWC also prohibits the transformation of biological agents with established legitimate and sanctioned purposes into agents of a nature and quality that could be used to effectively induce illness or death. In addition to offensive weaponization of microorganisms or toxins, prohibited research procedures include concentrating a strain of bacterium or virus, altering the size of aggregations of potentially harmful biologic agents (e.g., refining anthrax spore sizes to spore sizes small enough to be effectively and widely carried in air currents), producing strains capable of withstanding normally adverse environmental conditions (e.g., disbursement weapons blast), and the manipulation of a number of other factors that make biologic agents effective weapons.

Although there have been several international meetings designed to strengthen the implementation and monitoring of BWC provisions, BWC verification procedures are currently the responsibility of an ad hoc commission of scientists. Broad international efforts to coordinate and strengthen enforcement of BWC provisions remains elusive.