Response is failure in the primary mission of preventing CBW
The Global Partnership against the Spread of Materials and Weapons of Mass Destruction has now been around for over two decades. In the wake of the terrorist attacks against the US in September 2001, it started out as an effort to mobilise the resources of the G8 members to prevent terrorist acquisition of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, and related materials. The weapons, technologies and skills available from the former Soviet Union presented a significant proliferation risk, which the US was already addressing through the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) programme. Now comprising 31 members, the Global Partnership (GP) played a …
Non-proliferation assistance: A proliferation of national focal points?
On 9 December I attended a one-day seminar entitled Assistance and capacity-building in the context of UN Security Council Resolution 1540, Disarmament and Non-Proliferation in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It took place in one of the committee rooms in the old building of the African Union Commission. It had none of the trappings of many modern high-tech venues, but offered all amenities one can wish for during a day-long meeting: an electricity plug under the desk (a civilisational advance that has yet to reach the main room for meetings of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, or BTWC, at the United …