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1.
What are biological weapons?
Biological
warfare is the deliberate spreading of disease amongst humans,
animals, and plants. Biological weapons introduce a bacteria
or virus into an environment for hostile purposes, that is not
prepared to defend itself from the intruder. As a result, this
agent can become very effective at killing plants, livestock,
pets, and humans. There are a huge variety of genetically or
traditionally modified bacterias and viruses to withstand antibiotics,
that could be used as biological weapons, but some of the most
common types today are bacteria, rickettsiae, viruses,
toxins, and fungi.
Bacteria
Bacteria
are single-cell organisms. Bacteria vary greatly in their level
of lethality and infectivity. Although many pathogenic bacteria
are susceptible to antibiotic drugs, strains can be selected
that are resistant to antibiotic and occur naturally. Bacteria
can be readily grown in artificial media using facilities similar
to those found in the brewery industry.
Examples
of Bacteria: Bacillus Anthracis
(causes anthrax), Yersinia pestis (causes plague), Brucella
suis (causes brucellosis) Pasturella tularensis (causes talaremia
also known as rabbit fever or deer fly fever) Vibrio cholera(causes
cholera) , and many other less dramatic but still pathogenic
species like Salmonella typhi and Staphylococcus aureus. Effects
of anthrax: About 1-6 days after inhaling Bacillus anthracis
spores there would be a gradual onset of vague symptoms of illness
such as fatigue, fever, mild discomfort in the chest and a possibly
a dry cough. The symptoms would improve for a few hours or 2-3
days. Then, there would be sudden onset of difficulty in breathing,
profuse sweating, cyanosis (blue colored skin), shock and death
in 24-36 hours.
These
symptoms are essentially those of Woolsorter's disease, which
is caused by inhalation of Bacillus anthracis spores rather
than contact with the bacterium through the skin. Contact through
the skin is the most common "naturally" occurring form of Anthrax
and is characterized by swelling and boils on the skin. Skin
symptoms would not necessarily be expected with Anthrax resulting
from inhaled spores in BW.
http://www.bact.wisc.edu/Bact330/lectureanthrax
Rickettsiae
Rickettsiae
are similar to bacteria in structure and form, but must be grown
in living tissue. Examples of Rickettsiae: Coxiella burnetti
(causes Q fever) and Rickettsia prowasecki(causes epidemic typhus).
Effects
of Rickettsiae: Gradual onset
of fever with severe headache, chills, generalized pains and
dry cough (sometimes developing to bronchopneumonia) of about
2 weeks. A macular rash appears by about 5 days, first appearing
on the trunk and lasting about six days. CNS manifestations
are possible. Damage is caused to vascular endothelia by invasion
of rickettsiae, possibly leading to thrombosis and hemorrhage.
http://www.mitretek.com/mission/envene/biological/agents/rickettsia.html
Viruses
Viruses
are 100 times smaller than bacteria. They mostly consist of
DNA and need other living organisms to replicate. Viruses can
mutate to adapt to their environments, either naturally or through
genetic engineering to increase their pathogenicity/virulence.
Examples of viruses include: Variola virus (causes smallpox),
and Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis (causes VEE), Yellow fever
virus (causes yellow fever), Ebola virus (causes Ebola hemmorrhagic
fever), Hanta Virus (causes a haemorraghic fever as well)
Effects
of Variola virus: The usual entry
of variola virus is through the respiratory tract with infection
of the oropharyngeal (mouth) or respiratory (trachea and lung)
mucosa. Secretions from the mouth and nose, rather than scab
material, are the most important source of human-to-human transmission.
The initial infection in the oropharynx or respiratory tract
produces neither symptoms nor local lesions, and patients are
not infectious until an oropharyngeal enanthem appears at the
end of the primary incubation periodScab material forms as the
rash dries and usually consists of large fragments of cellular
debris, with virions bound within a dense, fibrous mesh containing
a large amount of the antiviral substance interferon.
http://books.nap.edu/html/variola_virus/ch3.html
Toxins
Toxins
are the non-living products of micro-organisms. Although they
are often subsumed under bioweapons agents, they represent a
special category, sharing many characteristics with chemical
warfare agents. Toxins can also be produced by chemical synthesis.
Toxins, like chemical warfare agents, can only affect those
exposed to the toxin and cannot produce transmissible diseases.
Because they are non-living organisms, producing a large quantity
of toxins requires more time than would be needed to make a
similar quantity of other biological agents.
Examples
of Toxins include: Saxitoxin (produced by blue green algae),
Botulinum toxin (causes botulism), Ricin (derived from castor
beans), Staphylococcal enterotoxin B (causes fever, vomiting,
nausea)
Effects
of botulinium toxin: Botulinum toxin, produced by the bacteria
Clostridium botulinum, is the most poisonous substance known.
The bacteria grows on, e.g., poorly preserved food and causes
a severe form of food-poisoning (botulism). The incubation period
is between one and three days after which the victim becomes
ill with stomach pains, diarrhoea, disturbances to vision, giddiness
and muscular weakness. The whole body including the respiratory
musculature becomes paralyzed which leads to death by suffocation
within a few days. http://www.opcw.nl/chemhaz/toxins.htm
Fungi
Fungi
are almost entirely multicellular (with yeast, Saccharomyces
cerviseae, being a prominent unicellular fungus), heterotrophic
(deriving their energy from another organism, whether alive
or dead), and usually having some cells with two nuclei (multinucleate,
as opposed to the more common one, or uninucleate) per cell.
Evolution of multicellular eukaryotes increased the size and
complexity of organisms, allowing them to exploit the terrestrial
habitat. First classified as plants, fungi are now considered
different enough from plants to be placed in a separate kingdom.
Fungi also are important crop parasites, causing loss of food
plants, spoilage of food and some infectious diseases.
Examples
of Fungi infectious diseases include:
Aspergillosis, Blastomycosis, Candida, Coccidioidomycosis, Cryptococcosis,
Histoplasmosis, Mucormycosis, Paracoccidioidomycosis, Sporotrichosis
Effects of fungi: Isolated skin lesion(s), focal lesions of
bone, central nervous system, visceral organs, and if you are
a male, lesion in the genito-urinary system
Other anti-human agents, better known
as anti-plant and anti-animal agents:
Anti-Animal Biological Agents include: Aspergillus (poultry),
Foot and Mouth Disease (cattle, pigs, sheep, goats), Heartwater
(cattle, sheep, goats, deer), Newcastle Disease (poultry), Rinderpest
(cattle)
Anti-Plant Biological Agents include:
Rice Blast (fungus causing lesion on leaves), Stem Rust (fungal
disease affecting cereal crops), Sugarbeet Curly Top Virus (dwarfed
leaves and swollen veins), Tobacco Mosaic Virus (virus affectnig
wide range of plants, stunted growth) http://gened.emc.maricopa.edu/bio/bio181/BIOBK/BioBookDiversity_4.html
Ê
Deadly
and Cheap
When
compared to the cost of a nuclear weapons program, biological
weapons are extremely cheap. It is estimated that 1 gram of
toxin could kill 10 million people. A purified form of botulinum
toxin is approximately 3 million times more potent than Sarin,
a chemical nerve agent. As a comparison, a SCUD missile filled
with botulinum toxin could affect an area of 3700 sq.km, an
area 16 times greater than could be affected with Sarin.
It
is important to note that while it is relatively cheap to produce
the biological weapons agents in large quantities, sophisticated
weapons are slightly more difficult to develop and produce.
For example, when a missile is flying it gets very hot, biological
agents are killed. Therefore, the missile has to be fitted with
a cooling system. In addition, storing biological weapons agents
requires much effort, due to the quick decay of many of these
sorts of agents. However, as far as weapons of mass destruction
are concerned, biological weapons are relatively cheap to develop
and produce. In one analysis, the comparative cost of civilian
(unprotected) casualties is "$2,000 per square kilometer with
conventional weapons, $800 with nuclear weapons, $600 with nerve-gas
weapons, and $1 with biological weapons." Not surprisingly,
biological weapons have long since become known as the poor
man's atom bomb.
Any
nation with a reasonably advanced pharmaceutical and medical
industry has the capability of mass producing biological weapons.
This fact also leads to problems with determining what countries
have programs. Anything from a piece of fruit to a ballistic
missile could be used to deliver a biological weapon to a target.
Along with this is the fact that with certain organisms, only
a few particles would be needed to start an infection that could
potentially cause an epidemic. Conventional weapons explode
once and are finished. With a few particles of Hanta virus many
thousands of people could become carriers that infect thousands
more people.
A
seed culture of anthrax bacteria could be grown to mass quantities
in around 96 hours. The level of technology needed to do this
kind of work is also much lower when compared to Nuclear weapons.
Most of the techniques used can be found in textbooks and journals
available worldwide. The information is not considered "hot"
like certain kinds of nuclear information. The techniques are
taught in undergraduate courses in Colleges and Universities
worldwide.
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2.
A Short History of Biological Weapons Use
The
first recorded use of biological agents is the Romans using
dead animals to foul the enemies water supply. This had the
dual effects of decreasing enemy numbers and lowering morale.
1346-1347
- Mongols catapult corpses contaminated with plague over the
walls into Kaffa (in Crimea), forcing besieged Genoans to flee.
Some historians believe that this event was the cause of the
epidemic of plague that swept across medieval Europe killing
25 million.
1710
- Russian troops allegedly use plague-infected corpses against
Swedes 1767 - During the French and Indian Wars, the British
give blankets used to wrap British smallpox victims to hostile
Indian tribes.
1916-1918
- German agents use anthrax and the equine disease glanders
to infect livestock and feed for export to Allied forces. Incidents
include the infection of Romanian sheep with anthrax and glanders
for export to Russia,
Argentinian mules with anthrax for export to Allied troops,
and American horses and feed with glanders for export to
France.
1937 - Japan
begins its offensive biological weapons program. Unit 731, the
BW research and development unit, is located in Harbin, Manchuria.
Over the course of the program, at least 10,000 prisoners are
killed in Japanese experiments.
1939
- Nomonhan Incident - Japanese poison Soviet water supply with
intestinal typhoid bacteria at former Mongolian border. First
use of biological weapons by Japanese.
1940
- The Japanese drop rice and wheat
mixed with plague-carrying fleas over China and Manchuria.
1942
- U.S. begins its offensive biological
weapons program and chooses Camp Detrick, Frederick, Maryland
as its research and development site May.
1945
- Only known tactical use of BW by Germany. A large reservoir
in Bohemia is poisoned with sewage (BW)28 September, 1950-February,
1951 - In a test of BW dispersal methods, biological simulants
are sprayed over San Francisco June.
1966
- The United States conducts a test of vulnerability to covert
BW attack by releasing a harmless biological simulant into the
New York City subway system November 25.
1969
- President Nixon announces unilateral
dismantlement of the U.S. offensive BW program.
February
14, 1970 - President Nixon extends
the dismantlement efforts to toxins, closing a loophole which
might have allowed for their production.
1978
- In a case of Soviet state-sponsored assassination, Bulgarian
exile Georgi Markov, living in London, is stabbed with an umbrella
that injects him with a tiny pellet containing ricin.
April
2, 1979 - Outbreak of pulmonary
anthrax in Sverdlovsk, Soviet Union.
In 1992, Russian president Boris Yeltsin acknowledges
that the outbreak was caused by an accidental relase of anthrax
spores from a Soviet military microbiological facility
1985-1991
- Iraq develops an offensive biological
weapons capability including anthrax, botulium toxin, and aflatoxin.
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3.
Efforts to Ban Biological Weapons
Using
biological and chemical weapons was condemned by international
declarations and treaties, notably by the 1907 Hague Convention
(IV) respecting the laws and customs of war on land. Efforts
to strengthen this prohibition resulted in the conclusion, in
1925, of the Geneva Protocol which banned the use of asphyxiating,
poisonous or other gases, usually referred to as chemical weapons,
as well as the use of bacteriological methods of warfare. The
latter are now understood to include not only bacteria, but
also other biological agents, such as viruses or rickettsiae
which were unknown at the time the Geneva Protocol was signed.
(On 1 January 1997, 132 States were party to this Protocol.)
However, the Geneva Protocol did not prohibit the development,
production and stockpiling of chemical and biological weapons.
Attempts to achieve a complete ban were made in the 1930s in
the framework of the League of Nations, but with no success.
The
prohibition of chemical and biological weapons appeared on the
agenda of the Eighteen-Nation Committee on Disarmament in Geneva
(now called the Conference on Disarmament)in 1968. One year
later, the United Nations published an influential report on
the problems of chemical and biological warfare, and the question
received special attention at the UN General Assembly. The UN
report concluded that certain chemical and biological weapons
cannot be confined in their effects in space and time and might
have grave and irreversible consequences for man (sic) and nature.
This would apply to both the attacking and the attacked nations.
Due to interest in the topic in the end of the 1960s, the Biological
Weapons Convention was signed in 1972 and entered into force
in 1975.
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4.
What is the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention?
The
Biological Weapons Convention entered into force in March 1975
after 22 governments had ratified, and was the first multilateral
disarmament treaty banning an entire category of weapons of
mass destruction. The Convention, about four pages long, bans
the development, production stockpiling, or acquisition of biological
agents or toxins of any type or quantity that do not have protective,
medical, or other peaceful purposes, or any weapons or means
of delivery for such agents or toxins. Under the treaty, all
such materiel is to be destroyed within nine months of the treaty's
entry into force.
The
Treaty has been ratified by 143 states and has review conferences
every five years, the next one will be in November 2001.
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5.
The Convention has a number of inadequacies.
Unlike
the Chemical Weapons Convention that has an unprecedented on-site
inspection provision, the Biological Weapons Convention has
no verification provisions.
The
Convention has not defined the prohibited items nor the targets
to which the prohibitions relate. There exists, however, an
authoritative definition of biological warfare agents formulated
by the World Health Organisation (WHO). In a 1970 report the
WHO described biological warfare agents as those that depend
for their effects on multiplication within the target organism
and are intended for use in war to cause disease or death in
man (sic), animals or plants; they may be transmissible or non-transmissible.
Toxins are poisonous products of organisms; unlike biological
agents, they are inanimate and not capable of reproducing themselves.
The Convention applies to all natural or artificially created
toxins, "whatever their origin or method of production" (Article
I). Thus, it covers toxins produced biologically, as well as
those produced by chemical synthesis. Since toxins are chemicals
by nature, their inclusion in the BW Convention was a step towards
the projected ban on chemical weapons.
The
term "other peaceful purposes" in the Convention has remained
unclear, a reason why the BW weapons control has been so difficult.
One can assume that it includes scientific experimentation.
Under the BW Convention, the prohibition to develop, produce,
stockpile or otherwise acquire or retain biological agents and
toxins is not absolute. It applies only to types and to quantities
that have no justification for prophylactic, protective or other
peaceful purposes. The stipulation that any development, production,
stockpiling or retention of biological warfare agents or toxins
must be justified and does not carry sufficient weight. Retention,
production or acquisition by other means of certain quantities
of biological agents and toxins to be used for hostile purposes
may thus continue, and there may be testing in laboratories
and even in the field which may lead to the development of more
progressive and sophisticated biological agents for the purpose
of warfare.
There
are no provisions in the BW Convention restricting biological
research activities. This circumstance and the express authorization
to engage in production (for peaceful purposes) of biological
agents and toxins that may be used in warfare create a risk
that the provisions of the Convention will be circumvented.
There are no agreed standards or criteria for the quantities
of agents or toxins that may be needed by different States for
the different purposes recognized by the Convention. The parties
are not even obliged to declare the types and amounts of agents
or toxins they possess and the use they make of them.
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6.
What is the Ad Hoc Group and what is it doing?
The
Ad Hoc Group is working to strengthen the BWC with a verification
protocol.
The
mandate to negotiate a Protocol on verification came from the
1994 Special Conference of States Parties to the BWC. The revelation
that some states parties had been discovered to have developed
covert biological weapons programmes added to the recognition
that the effectiveness and implementation of the BWC needed
to be strengthened. A group of governmental experts (VEREX)
met from 1992-1993 to consider verification measures from a
mostly technical perspective . Negotiations on a Protocol began
in earnest in January 1995 in the current Ad Hoc Group (AHG)
format. The group meets several times a year for two to four
weeks each time and has now met for a total of about 60 weeks.
The
AHGs work is to be completed by the Fifth Review Conference.
This Review Conference will take place in November-December
of 2001, preceded by a Preparatory Commission in April.
By
July 1997, the AHG had before it the first draft of the verification
protocol, the so called rolling text, which it has since been
negotiating on. The rate of progress in removing brackets (which
are the indicators of disagreement) has varied over the last
three years, and slowed down recently. Only the most contentious
issues in the Protocol are left unresolved, and therefore discussion
now centers on the question of when a Chair's text (i.e. a text
without brackets, which shows the possible final shape of the
protocol) should be produced.
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7.
What do Individual Governments have to do after they sign?
Under
the future Protocol, States have to initially declare past offensive
and defensive BW programmes. They have then to declare annually
dual-use capabilities, such as facilities with high biological
containment, large production facilities, facilities working
with certain very dangerous agents, and facilities working in
the national biodefence programmes. These declarations will
randomly be checked by on-site visits. If there are ambiguities
in the declarations, the future organization or individual states
can request a clarification, including a clarification visit.
If a state suspects that another state is violating the BTWC,
i.e. possesses or uses BW, it can request a short-notice challenge
investigation. Under the Protocol, States also have to implement
national legislation prohibiting their citizens from engaging
in activities prohibited by the BTWC worldwide. Each State will
have to set up a national authority which is responsible for
implementing the protocol and cooperating with the future Organisation
for the Prohibition of Biological and Toxin Weapons.
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8.
Countries Suspected of Possessing Biological Weapons
i) Russia
As revealed by Yeltsin, the Soviet Union
maintained an offensive biological weapons program from 1972
until 1992. Yeltsin signed a decree in April 1992 to terminate
its offensive research, dismantled experimental biological agent
production lines, closed a biological weapons testing facility,
cut the number of personnel in the program by fifty percent
and the funding by thirty percent, and submitted information
about its biological weapons program to the UN. According to
its declaration, Russia maintained an offensive research and
development program until March 1992 that worked with anthrax,
tularemia, brucellosis, plague, Venezuelan equine encephalitis,
typhus, and Q-fever. With respect to toxins, Russia claimed
that the only natural toxin studied in its program was botulinum
toxin. Apparently, Russian scientists developed a genetically
manipulated strain of the plague.
ii)
Iraq
Iraq had advanced facilities studying anthrax,
botulism, brucellosis, tularemia, and gas gangrene organisms
were found alongside a wide array of potential delivery systems
from aerial bombs to surface-to-air-missiles(SAM's).
iii)
United States
On 14 February 1970, the United States also
formally renounced the production, stockpiling and use of toxins
for war purposes. It stated that military programmes for biological
agents and toxins would be confined to research and development
for defensive purposes.
iv)
UK
Great Britain abandoned its offensive biological
weapons capabilities in the late 1950s.
v) China
China,
a member of the BWC since 1984, is believed to have maintained
an offensive biological weapons program throughout most of the
1980s that included "development, production, stockpiling or
other acquisition or maintenance of biological warfare agents.
vi)
Egypt
Egypt, a signatory but not a member of the
BWC, has a program of military-applied research in the area
of biological weapons dating back to the 1960s. No publicly
available data to date indicates that Egypt has produced its
own biological agents. Bilateral cooperation between US and
Egypt has resulted in a military-medical laboratory in Egypt,
recognized as one of the region's leading medical-biological
centers, equipped with the latest equipment and staffed with
highly qualified American specialists. The research conducted
by this laboratory is highly classified. The US assessment is
that it remains likely that Egypt continues to maintain a capability
to conduct biological warfare.
vii)
Iran
Iran, which joined the CWC on 3 November
1997, has been a member of the BWC since 1973. Iran conducts
legitimate biomedical research at various institutes, which
are suspected of involvement in this biological weapons program.
The Iranian military has used medical, education, and scientific
research organizations for many aspects of biological agent
procurement, research, and production. The US finding is that
Iran probably has produced biological agents and apparently
has weaponized a small quantity of those agents.
viii)
Syria
Syria has signed but not ratified the BWC. Israel has expressed
concerns that Syria has biological agents for contaminating
drinking water. However, no reliable information is available
about the existence of biological weapons in Syria or a directed
program for the creation of an offensive potential in the biological
realm. Syria nonetheless remains among those countries that
the United States believes to be developing an offensive biological
warfare capability.
ix)
Israel
Israels national biological weapons program is unknown. An Israeli
biological weapons program is likely to be patterned after those
formerly maintained by the United States and the former Soviet
Union. In other words, the agents likely to be involved in an
Israeli program are anthrax, botulinum toxin, tularemia, plague,
Venezuelan equine encephalitis, and Q-fever. Similarly, Israeli
delivery systems are likely to mirror those developed by the
United States, namely spray systems or missile warheads and
submunitions. Israel is one of the few states that has not signed
the BWC.
x) Libya
Libya is thought to be attempting to weaponize biological agents,
although little is known about Libya's biological weapons program.
While Libya has been a member of the BWC since 1972, there is
information indicating that it is engaged in initial testing
of biological weapons. Presently, Libyans are expressing interest
in information on work overseas involving biological agents.
Libya has also failed to submit a confidence-building data declaration
to the UN. According to the US assessment, Libya is seeking
to acquire the capability to develop and produce biological
agents.
xi)
North Korea
North Korea has been a member of the BWC since 1987. During
the early 1960s, North Korea initiated an offensive biological
warfare program. Presently, North Korea is engaged in applied
military-biological research at universities, medical institutes,
and specialized research centers. Research at these centers
involves pathogens for malignant anthrax, cholera, and bubonic
plague. Evidence indicates that North Korea has been testing
biological weapons on its island territories.
xii)
Taiwan
Taiwan, which joined the BWC in 1973, is another country suspected
of proliferating both chemical and biological weapons. Taiwan
is said not to have biological weapons, but it continues to
manifest an active interest in conducting biological research
of a military-applied nature. Taiwan has a significant scientific
and technical base in microbiology and a large number of skilled
biotechnology specialists, mostly trained in America and Western
Europe. Taiwan is moving to upgrade its biotechnology sector,
which makes wide use of technologies basic to the production
of biological weapons.
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10.How
can biological weapons be defended against?
Biological
defense may be divided into the following categories: prevention,
protection, detection, treatment, and decontamination.
Prevention
Prevention
may take several forms. In the case of biological warfare, international
disarmament and inspection regimes may deter production and
dissemination of biological warfare agents. Intelligence assets
may indicate potential threats and allow for preventative action
to be undertaken.
Protection
Forms
of protection against biological warfare agents are limited
in capacity. Protective suits, clothing, gas masks and filters
may provide limited protection for short periods of time. However,
the persistence of biological agents such as anthrax makes such
protections mainly useful for military personnel and first responders.
Anthrax can remain active and potentially lethal for at least
40 years. (source: Biological Warfare: A Historical Perspective)
It should be noted that anthrax is an exception, as most other
agents do not live that long. Protection (as detection and treatment)
of Biological Warfare is the establishment and maintenance of
a good health care system. In addition, vaccination is a form
of protection, which may provide substantial protection against
naturally occurring agents, although vaccines often provide
limited or no protection against genetically engineered variants
designed to defeat such vaccines.
Detection
During
the Gulf War, US and allied forces suffered from a lack of reliable
biological agent detection systems. Subsequently, a number of
detection systems have been developed. Often it takes from a
few hours to a few days to detect exposure to a biological weapon.
However, with advances in biotechnology will help develop improved
and quicker detectors. Current detectors include: SMART
(Sensitive Membrane Antigen Rapid Test) JBPDS (Joint
Biological Point Detection System) BIDS (Biological Integrated
Detection System) IBAD (Interim Biological Agent Detector)
(source: Biological Warfare and Detection Capabilities).
Treatment
Treatment options after infection depend
on whether or not the infectious agent is identified. If not
identified, massive doses of antibiotics may be given in hopes
that something may work. Again, treatment of victims of biological
warfare largely depends on the establishment and maintenance
of a good health care system. Decontamination Unlike chemical
weapons, which disperse over time, biological agents may grow
and multiply over time. Anthrax can remain active in the soil
for at least 40 years and is highly resistant to eradication.
(Source: Biological Warfare: A Historical Perspective) However,
the anthrax contaminated Gruinard Island in the UK was decontaminated
decontamination is possible, using chemicals, heat or rays (UV).
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11. What should WILPF groups do to support
this treaty?
WILPF
can serve an important role in raising awareness about biological
warfare. For example, there is the sign-on initiative by The
Sunshine Project (www.sunshine-project.org). The
principle challenge in addressing biological warfare is to expose
and prevent the misuse of biosciences. Therefore, interaction
with environmental and consumer protection groups in relevant
fields would be useful. Once the Protocol exists, it will be
very important to lobby for ratification, although this will
be an arduous fight, especially in the United States.
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12.
Other Conventions, Laws and Agreements Relating to Biological
Warfare and Biological Weapons
1.
Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating,
Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of
Warfare (The Geneva Protocol): Opened for Signature: June
17, 1925, Entered into Force: February 8, 1928 The Geneva Protocol
prohibits the use of all asphyxiationg, poisonous, or other
gases; all similar liquids, materials, or devices; and all methods
of bacteriological warfare during war.
2.
UK-US-Russian Joint Statement on Biological Weapons,
Meeting Held in Moscow, September 10-11, 1992 In a joint statement
issued at the conclusion of a trilateral meeting, the governments
of the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Russian Federation
affirmed their commitment to full compliance with the 1972 BWC.
In order to address concerns about compliance, the states agreed
on reciprocal measures to remove any ambiguities. Measures include
reciprocal visits to military and non-military biological facilities,
and the convening of expert groups to ensure continued compliance.
U.S. and U.K. officials visited Russian sites in October 1993
and January 1994. In February and March 1994, Russian officials
visited three facilities in the United States and one in Britain.
3.
Environmental Modification Convention, entered into force
on October 5, 1978. In August 1975, the chief representatives
of the U.S. and the Soviet delegations to the Conference of
the Committee on Disarmament (CCD) tabled, in parallel, identical
draft texts of a "Convention on the Prohibition of Military
or any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques."
The Convention defines environmental modification techniques
as changing -- through the deliberate manipulation of natural
processes -- the dynamics, composition or structure of the earth,
including its biota, lithosphere, hydro-sphere, and atmosphere,
or of outer space. The Convention entered into force on October
5, 1978, when the 20th state to sign the Convention deposited
its instrument of ratification. The Convention entered into
force for the United States on January 17, 1980, when the U.S.
instrument of ratification was deposited in New York.
4.
The Hague Convention (IV), Respecting the Laws and Customs
of War on Land, signed at The Hague, 18 October 1907. Section
II: Hostilities. Chapter I: Means of Injuring the Enemy, Sieges,
and Bombardments Art. 22. The right of belligerents to adopt
means of injuring the enemy is not unlimited. Art. 23. In addition
to the prohibitions provided by special Conventions, it is especially
forbidden - (a) To employ poison or poisoned weapons.
5.
Chemical Weapons Convention on the Prohibition of the Development,
Production, Stockpiling and use of Chemical Weapons and on their
Destruction, was opened for signature in 1993, and entered
into force in 1997. On January 13, 1993, in Paris, 130 countries
signed the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) to ban the entire
class of chemical weapons. Many of those nations have since
ratified it. In this country, debate continues on the strategic
implications of the convention, as drafted,
and whether it is in the U.S. national security interest. This
convention covers the toxins section in biological weapons.
