THE US has rejected plans to enforce the 30-year-old treaty banning
biological weapons. Last week in Geneva, American negotiators said they do not
support the idea of declaration and inspection because it would not help catch
the cheaters.
The other 52 nations that are party to the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention
were meeting this week in a last-ditch attempt to save the protocol. As New
快猫短视频 went to press it was unclear if the American move would effectively
scupper the protocol, or whether the other nations would 鈥渄o a Kyoto鈥� and go
ahead without the US.
The protocol calls for nations to declare any facilities capable of turning
out biological weapons. A team of international inspectors would make random
visits to these plants under the terms of the protocol. They would also
investigate alleged violations. The US opposes random visits, partly because US
pharmaceuticals companies are concerned about inspections providing an excuse
for industrial espionage.
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Donald Mahley, the chief US negotiator, said the idea of declarations and
inspections came from previous agreements to control chemical and nuclear
weapons. But, he said, 鈥渢his traditional approach . . . is not a workable
structure for biological weapons鈥�, because it is impossible to check every plant
where illicit work might be going on.
Yet Oliver Meier of the London-based arms-control lobby group Vertic says the
protocol was not just about detection. 鈥淭he protocol aims to create an
environment where launching a biological weapons programme is harder. It is more
about deterrence than detection.鈥� But Mahley said that the protocol 鈥渄oes not
provide anything remotely resembling a deterrent鈥�. His claim follows a secret
analysis carried out by the Bush administration. But this analysis appears to be
based on mock inspections of vaccine factories and research labs in the US in
1996, which simulated the inspections the protocol recommends.
The results were described in May, in the journal Arms Control Today,
by Alan Zelicoff of Sandia National Labs in New Mexico. Only investigations
into specific allegations provided results. Random visits were more likely to
raise unfounded suspicions than allay them. Echoing this, Mahley said that such
鈥渧isits actually risk damage to innocent facilities . . . (but) would have
almost no chance of discovering anything useful . . . at a less-than-innocent
蹿补肠颈濒颈迟测.鈥�
The US says export controls on biotechnology are a better way of discouraging
bioweapons than spot checks. The protocol does allow for export controls.
However, the controls would eventually be in the hands of an international
agency that all protocol members would be able to join.
The US is clearly unhappy with the idea of foreign officials determining US
export controls. Instead, Mahley said the US wants to strengthen the 鈥淎ustralia
Group鈥� of industrialised nations, which currently coordinates informal trade
controls on the kinds of equipment that can be used for germ warfare.
One measure the US does want to keep is inspection of suspected bioweapons
activities. Eleven countries are alleged to have covert bioweapons programmes
(see Graphic),
but there is no internationally sanctioned way of checking out
these suspicions. But Meier says the US is wrong to think that it will be able
to 鈥渃herry-pick鈥� the measures it likes in later negotiations.
The treaty members will meet in November, and the US could make fresh
proposals then. But after six years of negotiation, the agreement includes too
many hard-fought trade-offs鈥攆rom the size of inspection teams to helping
poor countries make peaceful use of biotechnology鈥攖o be easily replaced.