Preventing the Development of Advanced Biological Weapons

General AssemblyDisarmament & International Security Committee

TopicPreventing the Development of Advanced Biological Weapons

Biological warfare has a long and troubling history. Roman soldiers would dip their swords and arrows into excrement or the flesh of corpses in an attempt to make their adversaries ill, usually with tetanus. The British Army, on at least one occasion during the French and Indian War, broke a siege by giving smallpox-infested blankets to a delegation of Native Americans sent to negotiate an end to hostilities. But it wasn’t until the germ theory of disease (i.e. the understanding that microorganisms are responsible) became widely accepted in the late 19th century that modern biological warfare came to be. The use of biological agents such as glanders and anthrax during World War I culminated in the ratification of the Geneva Protocol of 1925, which prohibited the use of biological agents in armed conflicts. The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) of 1972 attempted to expand and operationalize this prohibition, by further prohibiting the creation of delivery systems and regulating peaceful research into biological agents.

Since the BWC entered into force in 1975, there have been regular review conferences dedicated to expanding and strengthening the Convention, but with limited concrete results. While the use of biological weapons has been limited since then to a handful of terror attacks by non-state actors, the potential always exists for a state to break with the protocol, and that risk is exacerbated by the BWC’s allowance for peaceful scientific, economic, and public health research into biological agents. It is much easier to adapt a peaceful biological program into a weapons program than to develop weapons from scratch. The rise of cloud laboratories – where experiments can be programmed and conducted remotely – and AI-driven computing has also allowed for much more rapid breakthroughs, sometimes at lower cost. The nightmare scenario, however, is that these new technologies could be used in conjunction with genetic engineering to endlessly generate new, untreatable diseases. And while Article X of the BWC mandates “the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and scientific and technological information” relating to peaceful use of biological agents, many nations in the Global South feel that nations with more developed biotech industries have fallen far short of full cooperation on these matters.

Efforts to strengthen the BWC should be focused primarily on three points. First, a more concrete review mechanism for biotech research and development should be implemented. This would reduce the risk of such research being diverted toward illicit ends. Second, the expansion of international cooperation for peaceful use should be pursued. These technologies have legitimate scientific, economic, and public health benefits, and their development should not be unnecessarily constrained, nor should those benefits be limited solely to advanced industrial nations. Finally, a more robust system for verification and compliance should be established, perhaps akin to nuclear inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Focus Questions:

1. How can DiSec establish a biotech review mechanism that achieves its objective, without unduly infringing upon the national sovereignty of member states?
2. What can be done to incentivize states with advanced biotech research programs to expand efforts to share this research with other states, both at similar and different levels of economic and scientific development?
3. For research programs into biological agents, what would a verification and compliance regime look like?

Useful Links:

Geneva Protocol of 1925:
https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/geneva-gas-prot-1925/protocol

Biological Weapons Convention of 1972:
https://treaties.unoda.org/t/bwc

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