COVID-19 interferes with CWC and BTWC meeting schedules
COVID-19 is messing up the diplomatic disarmament and arms control agendas. On 27 March Ambassador Gustavo Zlauvinen from Argentina announced as President-Designate the postponement of the 10th Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Initially scheduled for 27 April – 22 May 2020, it was to take place by April 2021. The deadline was moved up to August. However, because of the United Nation’s original schedule of meetings for 2021 combined with the many rescheduled meetings of this year, the only possible opening in the agenda was an impractical slot from 4 to 29 January. The pandemic’s resurgence in …
Webinar / Séminaire en ligne : Les armes chimiques et biologique : Une menace actuelle ?
It is webinar season! Les Interviews d’IDN La menace des armes chimiques et biologiques Jeudi 26 novembre à 18h30, IDN recevra Jean-Pascal Zanders, Chercheur et expert sur les armes chimiques et biologiques Sur le thème “Les armes chimiques et biologiques : Une menace actuelle ?” S’inscrire: https://cutt.ly/chigVcH 0 Links …
Implementing BTWC Article VII: Some thoughts for the Meeting of Experts and the Review Conference
[Text of a pre-recorded video ahead of an international webinar on 12 November providing an opportunity for informal discussions on topics to be considered by the Meeting of Experts on Assistance, Response and Preparedness (MX4).] Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, Colleagues, I am Dr Jean Pascal Zanders from Belgium and an independent disarmament researcher and consultant at The Trench. My focus is on the elimination and prevention of re-emergence of chemical and biological weapons. I have been regularly following meetings of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) since the Fourth Review Conference in 1996. I am honoured to introduce the …
Increasing assurance under the BTWC through biorisk management standards
The final report of the 7th Review Conference of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) held in December 2011 contained a one-line subparagraph whose ambition came to fruition in December 2019. Under Article IV (on national implementation measures), paragraph 13 opened as follows: The Conference notes the value of national implementation measures, as appropriate, in accordance with the constitutional process of each State Party, to: (a) implement voluntary management standards on biosafety and biosecurity; That single line of new language in the final report was the outcome of a preparatory process that had begun in September 2009 and …
Biological weapons: A surprise proposal from Kazakhstan worth exploring
This year the UN General Assembly (UNGA) celebrates the 75th time in session. However, the worldwide spread of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) casts dark shadow over the anniversary with some of the major global players preferring to play geopolitics when nations should unite to combat a germ that knows no borders. Unsurprisingly, many heads of state or government, ministers and other dignitaries have reflected in their statements on the pandemic and the challenges ahead. Some introduced constructive suggestions to address the factors that led to the outbreak at the end of last year. Others put forward …
COVID-19: A perfect storm foretold
Book review: Debora MacKenzie, COVID-19: The Pandemic That Never Should Have Happened and How to Stop the Next One (New York: Hachette Books, 2020), 279p. The book opens with the quote from a poster seen at the first March for Science on 22 April 2017: “Every disaster movie starts with someone ignoring a scientist”. My immediate thought: well, scientists may be clever, but they just cannot express their thoughts in a register that politicians and opinion shapers might understand. Another reflection replaced it instantaneously, this time on politicians: they are so ideological that if their teachings tell them to …
A Middle East Zone Free from Non-conventional Weapons (1/9)
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 …
A Middle East Zone Free from Non-conventional Weapons (3/9)
Part 3: Defining the Middle East, a loaded question In November 2019 a conference at the United Nations in New York (report here) 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. As indicated in the second part of this series, participants in the new conference series depart from the definition of the Middle East used by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). At the UN Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) seminar ‘The Middle …
A Middle East Zone Free from Non-conventional Weapons (2/9)
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 (4/9)
Part 4: Clear legal definitions at the core of the future treaty This article is the fourth in a series of blog postings exploring the opportunities and challenges facing a new series of conferences at the United Nations in New York 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. Why legal definitions matter By adopting Decision 73/546 on 22 December 2018, the UN General Assembly tasked the newly established conference with ‘elaborating a legally binding treaty establishing a Middle East …
