A Middle East Zone Free from Non-conventional Weapons (2/6)
Part 2: Treaties governing chemical and biological weapons In November 2019 a conference at the United Nations in New York marked a fresh round of diplomatic efforts to eliminate non-conventional arms – essentially nuclear weapons, and to a lesser extent chemical and biological weapons (CBW) – from the military arsenals in the Middle East. This article is the second in a series of blog postings exploring the opportunities and challenges to ensure that the regional risks of CBW threats and use – chemical weapons (CW) were and, as I am writing, are part of conflicts in the Middle East …
A Middle East Zone Free from Non-conventional Weapons (1/6)
Part 1: A new process to disarm the Middle East In November 2019 a conference at the United Nations in New York marked a fresh round of diplomatic efforts to eliminate non-conventional arms – essentially nuclear weapons, and to a lesser extent chemical and biological weapons (CBW) – from the military arsenals in the Middle East. The previous initiative died in 2015 as the review conference (RevCon) of the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) failed to agree on a consensus document. The new series of annual meetings takes place outside the NPT RevCon cycle, which consists of a quinquennial …
An anthrax attack against cattle: Would international emergency assistance be forthcoming?
Last Friday the Fondation pour la recherche stratégique (Paris) presented its new report on Article VII of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) during a side event of the Meeting of States Parties (3–6 December). The publication summarises the third tabletop exercise (TTX) to better understand how a party may request international assistance under Article VII if it has been exposed to a danger resulting from a treaty violation. Such a danger may include the use or threat of use of biological weapons (BW) by another state party. The first (Geneva, November 2016) and second (Lomé, May 2019) TTXs achieved better understanding of …
How the Convergence of Science, Industry and Military Art Slaughtered Innocence
Keynote speech at the CONDENsE Conference, Ypres, Belgium, 29 August 2019 Good evening ladies and gentlemen, colleagues and friends, It is a real pleasure to be back in Ieper, Ypres, Ypern or as British Tommies in the trenches used to say over a century ago, Wipers. As the Last Post ceremony at the Menin Gate reminded us yesterday evening, this city suffered heavily during the First World War.Raised to the ground during four years of combat, including three major battles – the first one in the autumn of 1914, which halted the German advance along this stretch of the frontline …
Blog 2 – Experiences of a student at the Meetings of Experts of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention
This second blog post covers both the second and third Meetings of Experts (MXs) of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC). MX2 on science and technology took place on 31 July and 2 August (the day in between being the Swiss national day); MX3 on strengthening national implementation of the BTWC was a one-day event on 5 August. MX2 impressions Like at the start of the week I was still sitting behind The Trench nameplate, which was formally represented for the first time in these five MXs of 2019. MX2 was chaired by Mr Yury Nikolaichik of Belarus who decided to …
Third tabletop exercise on emergency assistance in case of biological weapon use – First impressions
The day after the presentation of the report on the Article VII tabletop exercise (TTX) held in Lomé, Togo on 29 and 30 May to the states parties of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC), the Fondation pour la recherche stratégique (FRS) and the BTWC Implementation Support Unit (ISU) ran another TTX in the United Nations building in Geneva. This time the focus was on a series of anthrax outbreaks that affected mostly herd animals, but also led to multiple human casualties. The scenario was a deliberate attempt to break with the habitual simulations of increasingly dire human pandemics. After all, the BTWC covers …
Deciding on emergency assistance in case of biological weapons use
Today, in the Palais des Nations in Geneva we presented the report on the Tabletop Exercise (TTX) on the Implementation of Article VII of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC), which the Fondation pour la recherche stratégique (FRS) and the BTWC Implementation Support Unit (ISU) organised in cooperation with UN Regional Centre for Peace and Disarmament (UNREC) organised in Lomé, Togo on 28–29 May 2019. Being one of the more obscure provisions in the BTWC, Article VII only attracted state party attention over the past ten years or so. In follow-up to the decision of the 7th Review Conference (2011), parties to the convention looked for the …
Blog 1 – Experiences of a student at the Meetings of Experts of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention
I am Chiara Barbeschi and study Security Studies (BSc) at Leiden University in the Netherlands. Interning at The Trench and representing the non-governmental organisation (NGO) as a Research Associate at the five Meetings of Experts (MXs) of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) is an incredible opportunity that Jean Pascal Zanders granted me. Blogging about it is a chance of sharing my perspective, impressions and account of the conference. I know that there are also the daily factual reports Richard Guthrie writes and distributes in the meeting room. My posts convey the thoughts of a student experiencing the BTWC meetings for the first time. MX1 (29 – …
Disarmament education: Road-testing a master’s course on CBRN dual-use technology transfer controls
From 17 until 28 June I ran an Executive Course on Export Control at the M. Narikbayev KAZGUU University in Nur-Sultan (formerly Astana), Kazakhstan. Its goal was twofold. First, it tested in a real university setting parts of a master’s course on chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) dual-use technology transfer controls I have been developing since February 2018. Its second purpose was to attract interest in organising the full master’s course from other Central Asian academic institutes. Set in the broader context of peace and disarmament education, the Executive Course posed considerable challenges from the perspective of educational methodology …
Impunity through knowledge management: The legacy of South Africa’s CBW programme
Book review: Brian Rappert and Chandré Gould, The Dis-Eases of Secrecy: Tracing History, Memory & Justice (Jacana Media: Johannesburg, 2017), 261p. It took me almost a year to write this book review. There are reasons why. First, the book is not that easy to read. While one can read it linearly (that is one page after another, as one would normally do), it instead invites readers to follow the logic of the argument, which entails dashing back and forwards from one part in the book to another. Second, the insights are profound, and the reader needs to let them sink …
