Staring at disarmament’s Rubik Cube: External consensus-building at the 9th BTWC Review Conference
(Science and technology review under the BTWC, Part 3) Hungary presided over the 8th Review Conference of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) in 2016. On the first day, Ambassador György Molnár treated all delegations and other attendants to a Rubik Cube, not just because its inventor Ernö Rubik is a compatriot, but also because the participating states parties had a significant puzzle to solve. How to achieve a sufficiently relevant outcome so the convention could take a few small steps forward. A minimum expectation was an agreement on a next round of thematic intersessional Meetings of Experts (MX) …
Constructive ambiguity, or the insertion of science review in the CWC
(Science and technology review under the BTWC, Part 2) Comparing the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) and the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) is a useful exercise for imagining what could have been, especially for the former relative to the latter. Completion of negotiations lies 21 years apart. What became possible by 1992 was simply not an option in 1971. The cold war had ended; the 1987 US-USSR Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty paved the way for onsite inspections; and an eight-year war between Iran and Iraq had seen widespread chemical weapon (CW) use on battlefields, against civilians and for genocidal …
‘Within the next 5 to 10 years, it would probably be possible…’
(Science and technology review under the BTWC, Part 1) The next series of Meetings of Experts (MX) of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) is due to take place between 30 August and 8 September, a year later than originally scheduled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Of course, provided there is no fresh resurgence in the number of infections forcing fresh meeting and travel restrictions. If the MXs proceed as planned (albeit with reduced in-person attendance), the Meeting of States Parties (MSP) will likely convene before the end of the year. The pandemic has also pushed back the 9th …
Before the 1925 Geneva Protocol: First (mis)steps to constraining chemical weapons
17 June is the anniversary of the signing in 1925 of the Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare, more commonly known as the Geneva Protocol after the place where it was negotiated. In a blog posting six years ago, I discussed how the negotiators of the Geneva Protocol stumbled across the dual-use dilemma when trying to control toxic chemicals so that belligerents would not be able to use them again as weapons of war. However, in the absence of a formal international treaty outlawing the …
