National
Draft eludes meet on biological weapons
By N.Gopal Raj
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, DEC. 8. The three-week 5th Review Conference of the Biological Weapons Convention ended in Geneva on Friday with an unprecedented failure to agree on a final declaration and the meeting was instead adjourned for a year.
Once again, the United States has been the stumbling block. In July this year, it stood in the way of a legally- binding protocol which had effectively taken almost a decade to negotiate.
The protocol was intended to provide compliance mechanisms for the Biological Weapons Conventions which came into force in 1975 but has lacked any real teeth.
The U.S. argued that the draft protocol would jeopardise its biodefence programmes and its companies' commercial proprietary information while failing to deter ``rogue nations'' from pursuing illicit biological weapons programmes.
At the 5th Review Conference, which began on November 19, the U.S. chose to officially accuse Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Libya and Syria of having biological weapons programmes.
The delegates of Iraq, Iran and Libya angrily denying the U.S. accusations, retorted that the U.S. had only mentioned Arab Muslim countries while disregarding the violations of Israel.
The U.S. also presented its own set of proposals to strengthen the Biological Weapons Conventions. Countries would have to enact national criminal legislation forbidding biological weapons activities and strengthen bilateral extradition agreements for such offences.
Countries would have to accept international inspectors if the U.N. Secretary-General determined that there were suspicious disease outbreaks or alleged biological weapons incidents.
Countries would need to restrict access to dangerous pathogens and ensure national supervision over high-risk experiments. The World Health Organisation would have enhanced role in global disease surveillance and response capabilities.
But the U.S. proposals did not have key verification procedures, such as mandatory inspections, which the draft protocol had envisaged. Even its own allies did not see the U.S. proposals as a substitute for a legally-binding inspection and enforcement regime.
In the end, the conference broke down because the U.S. was unwilling to allow negotiations to continue on such a legally-binding instrument.
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