CHAPTER 4. The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention

Abstract

The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) is now entering its fifth decade of existence. Its legal embodiment of the normative constraint against the use of disease as a weapon has survived diplomatic crises, scientific and technological developments and the changing character of war and conflict within and between States. Although it has weathered these trends and developments it has never thrived as a Treaty, and repeated efforts to strengthen the Convention have produced only incremental and piecemeal improvements to the BTWC. The evolution of the legal regime, history of biological weapons use, and offensive biological weapons programmes in States are explored to assess how the Convention has evolved over forty years and how scientific and technological developments have been addressed within the BTWC. In essence, it is not the scope of the BTWC that is problematic: rather, that implementation of the BTWC remains a work in progress and that States Parties have been unable to agree upon the correct balance between the relationship of disarmament and development. The disappointing outcome of the Eighth Review Conference in 2016 continues the trend of incremental progress interspersed with regular diplomatic crises.