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Biological Weapons

  • The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) At A Glance
    Fact Sheets & Briefs
    October 4, 2010

    September 2012
  • Chemical and Biological Weapons Status at a Glance
    Fact Sheets & Briefs
    September 1, 2010

    August 2012
  • Biological Weapons Convention Signatories and States-Parties
    Fact Sheets & Briefs
    August 20, 2010

    Factsheet, August 2010
  • Seeking Biosecurity Without Verification: The New U.S. Strategy on Biothreats
    Arms Control Today
    January 14, 2010

    During a December 9 speech to the annual meeting of states-parties to the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) in Geneva, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Ellen O. Tauscher declared, “The Obama administration will not seek to revive negotiations on a verification protocol to the Convention. We have carefully reviewed previous efforts to develop a verification protocol and have determined that a legally binding protocol would not achieve meaningful verification or greater security.”

    In effect, President Barack Obama has decided not to reverse the 2001 decision by the Bush administration to reject a draft BWC compliance protocol that had been developed over six years of multilateral negotiations from 1995 to 2001. The protocol would have created a legally binding inspection regime for the BWC, which still lacks formal verification measures.
  • U.S. Lays Out Plans to Address Biothreats
    Arms Control Today
    January 14, 2010

    The Obama administration unveiled a revised U.S. strategy for dealing with biological weapons proliferation and terrorism Dec. 9, altering the Bush administration’s approach in some ways but keeping the focus on the threat from bioterrorism and reaffirming the decision not to pursue a verification protocol to the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC).

    Some diplomats questioned the emphases of the U.S. approach and the casting of the decision on the verification protocol.
  • Loose Nukes in New Neighborhoods: The Next Generation of Proliferation Prevention
    Arms Control Today
    May 8, 2009

    In the initial weeks of the Obama administration, former Vice President Dick Cheney stated that there was a "high probability" of a terrorist attempt to use a nuclear weapon or biological agent and that "whether they can pull it off depends on what kind of policies we put in place." President Barack Obama, in his April 5 Prague speech, said that terrorists "are determined to buy, build, or steal" a nuclear weapon and that the international community must work "without delay" to ensure that they never acquire one. Obama also outlined a number of policies for locking down vulnerable nuclear material and strengthening the nuclear nonproliferation regime. (Continue)
  • The Smallpox Destruction Debate: Could a Grand Bargain Settle the Issue?
    Arms Control Today
    March 4, 2009

    One of the longest and most contentious international policy debates has swirled around the question of whether to destroy the last known stocks of the smallpox (variola) virus, which are preserved at two World Health Organization (WHO)-authorized repositories in Russia and the United States. Although smallpox was eradicated from nature more than three decades ago, concerns surfaced in the early 1990s that a few countries may have retained undeclared samples of the virus for biological warfare purposes. Because a smallpox outbreak would be a global public health emergency of major proportions, in 1999 the WHO approved a research program at the two authorized repositories to develop improved medical defenses against the disease.
  • Reducing Biological Risks to Security
    Documents & Reports
    January 31, 2009
  • BWC States Address Safety, Security Measures
    Arms Control Today
    January 16, 2009
  • WMD Commission Issues Findings
    Arms Control Today
    January 16, 2009

    On Dec. 3, a congressionally mandated commission released a report offering 15 recommendations to help the U.S. government improve its ability to prevent and respond to threats of biological and nuclear terrorism. Drawing even more attention and criticism than the recommendations, however, was the commission's prediction that terrorists were likely to carry out an attack with biological or nuclear weapons somewhere in the world within the next five years. (Continue)