The Retort: Evolving CBW disarmament challenges
Dr Brett Edwards (Lecturer, University of Bath) and Professor Lijun Shang (School of Human Sciences, Metropolitan University London) are collaborating on The Retort, a new series of educational video recordings via YouTube on chemical and biological weapons (CBW), their disarmament, and the evolving threats they still pose. The recordings aim to give the public a general understanding of issues ahead of the review conferences of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (28 November – 16 December 2022) and the Chemical Weapons Convention (May 2023). For each video recording, the intiative takers invite an expert in the field. So far, three …
Maintaining treaty integrity in the face of biological disinformation warfare
Russia has called for a Formal Consultative Meeting under the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) to address its (fake) accusations against the US and Ukraine concerning biological research programmes. This meeting will start on Monday, 5 September. Treaties are like Roses, published in CBRNe World, August 2022, pp. 61-64b [From the introduction] Article V of the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) foresees in consultation and cooperation among states parties to address any problem concerning the implementation of the disarmament treaty. The First BTWC Review Conference (1980) agreed on the concept of a consultative meeting at the expert …
Reflections of a negotiator on the BTWC Ad Hoc Group
Introduction to Historical Notes, Issue #3 The third issue of the Historical Notes series was prepared by Dr Robert (Bob) J. Mathews. From 1984 until 2017, he served as Scientific Adviser to Australian delegations during the negotiation and implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and efforts to strengthen the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC). In this third issue of Historical Notes, he reviews the efforts undertaken by the states parties to the BTWC to equip the convention with verification tools and set up an international organisation to oversee its implementation. As soon as the treaty negotiations came to …
CBW in Regional Disarmament in the Middle East and North Africa
Just published (Open access): Jean Pascal Zanders (2022): Chemical and Biological Weapons in RegionalDisarmament in the Middle East and North Africa, Journal for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament,DOI: 10.1080/25751654.2022.2092368 From the introduction: In November 2019, the Conference on the Establishment of a Middle East Zone Free of Nuclear Weapons and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction held its first session. The new series of annual one-week meetings to eliminate non-conventional arms – essentially nuclear weapons (NW), and to a lesser extent chemical and biological weapons (CBW) – followed the acceptance by the First Committee of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) of Egypt’s …
