Biological Weapons

Characteristics of Terrorist Attacks: Chemical and Biological Weapons

Introduction to Biological Weapons

Concern over terrorist use of chemical and biological weapons increased after the 1995 sarin nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway and the discovery in 2001 of anthrax spores mailed in the United States. Chemical weapons consist of toxic chemical compounds, such as nerve gas or dioxin, whereas biological weapons are living organisms or their toxins, such as anthrax spores.

Chemical weapons can be divided into five main classes: incapacitating, choking, blistering, blood, and nerve agents. Incapacitating agents are the only deliberately nonlethal chemical weapon. They include the tear gases and pepper sprays typically used by police and other law enforcement agencies for crowd control or to subdue a person temporarily. Choking agents attack the victim’s respiratory system and hamper breathing, leading to death by suffocation. Blister agents produce large blisters on exposed skin that do not heal readily and therefore easily become infected. Blood agents, which victims absorb through breathing, enter the bloodstream and lead to convulsions, respiratory failure, and death as they shut down the body’s functioning. Nerve agents are especially effective. They can be either inhaled or absorbed through the skin and quickly attack the central nervous system, obstructing breathing.

Biological agents are disease-carrying organisms that infect people through inhalation, contaminated food or water, or contact with the skin. They include bacterial toxins, such as anthrax, Clostridium botulinum (botulism), and salmonella; plant toxins such as ricin; and viruses, such as tularemia, yellow fever, and smallpox.” (1)

Biological Weapons in 2011

United States views on international law (based on the document “Digest of U.S. Practice in International Law”): On October 4, 2011, Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation Thomas Countryman delivered remarks on the Biological Weapons Convention (“BWC”) at a conference at the Center for Biosecurity in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania commemorating the ten-year anniversary of anthrax attacks in the United States. Excerpts follow from Mr. Countryman’s remarks; the full text is available at (internet link) state.gov/t/isn/rls/rm/175121.htm.

The year 2001 was not only the year of the anthrax attacks. A few months before, in the summer of 2001, the U.S. officially withdrew its support for negotiations on a legally binding verification protocol for the Biological Weapons Convention. …Those attacks demonstrated the ineffectiveness of the verification protocol in addressing what we might call “classical” biological weapons threats—states programs and even more the threat posed by non-state actors. By 2002, some of the states that we cooperated with, that were skeptical about the U.S. approach were conscious that the anthrax attacks here in Washington had changed the debate. The measures that we had proposed suddenly seemed relevant and important even to those who had been the strongest advocates of a verification protocol focused on state activity. Getting countries to put in place domestic laws to deal with perpetrators of such acts, making labs safer and pathogens secure and training life scientists on the potential danger of the misuse of their work, all of these were very relevant to countering the threats that were revealed to the world in October 2001.

Our proposals foresaw—and the anthrax demonstrated—that …the BW threat from non-state actors needed to be addressed, and focusing on what countries were doing domestically to counter this real-world threat from sub-state actors was both critical to the U.S. collective security and to achieving the goals of the Biological Weapons Convention.

This approach as we rolled it out in 2003-2005 intersessional period, was at first very Western-oriented. The procedures that we proposed and highlighted were very much centered on the methodologies of the technologically advanced industrialized world and put forth without gaining much buy-in from lesser developed nations. But the BWC quickly showed that it had this very important role of showcasing best practices for countering a wide range of biological threats. We demonstrated then, and we remain convinced today, that the U.S. approach must include measures to help with human, animal and plant diseases and their consequences. As we progressed, those countries that were actively engaged in the process brought their best scientists and practitioners to give briefings and interact with the diplomats and their counterparts from other countries. Fairly rapidly, a much wider array of states and other nongovernmental and intergovernmental actors recognized the relevance of this approach not just to their national security but to their public health. So, over those years, attendance by States Parties doubled in the first year from that of the Protocol negotiations and continues to increase year by year.

Developments

Between 2007 and 2010, the Biological Weapons Convention Work Program resumed its focus on biosafety and pathogen security, national implementation and codes of conduct for scientists, and also focused on disease surveillance capacity building and assistance in the event of a suspicious outbreak or alleged use of BW. This focus on disease surveillance, and the demonstration that SARS, H1N1 and H5N1 knew no boundaries—that concerted national and international coordination was needed—brought home the value of the work ongoing in Geneva. The meetings were no longer just for diplomats; we had participants from all parts of the world and had the interaction of the disarmament, scientific, law enforcement, academic and private sector communities. These meetings stimulated significant activity at the national level and increased the knowledge base around the world in best practices in biosafety and biosecurity, disease surveillance, in science education. This new approach started with limited and modest goals but it was clearly a success.

That is the last ten years. Of course, today, the threat has not gone away. We fully recognize that a major biological attack on one of the world’s major cities could cause as much death and economic and psychological damage as a nuclear attack. And while the United States is still concerned about state-sponsored biological warfare and proliferation, we are equally, if not more, concerned about an act of bioterrorism due to the rapid pace of advances in the life sciences.

And so today, it is time for still more ambitious thinking.

As we go to the Biological Weapons Convention Review Conference in December in Geneva, the U.S. steps should line up with the aims of President Obama’s National Strategy for Countering Biological Threats which was announced at the BWC two years ago. This strategy has a clear, overarching goal … to protect against the misuse of science to develop or use biological agents to cause harm.

Details

Let me outline – or I’m sure for this group, remind you of—the broadest goals of the national strategy:

First, that we will work with the international community to promote the peaceful and beneficial use of life sciences, in accordance with the Biological Weapons Convention’s Article Ten, to combat infectious diseases regardless of their cause.

Second, we will work to promote global health security by increasing the availability of and access to knowledge and products of the life sciences to help reduce the impact from outbreaks of infectious disease, whether of natural, accidental, or deliberate origin.

Third, we will work toward establishing and reinforcing norms against the misuse of the life sciences. We seek to ensure a culture of responsibility, awareness, and vigilance among all who use and benefit from the life sciences.

And fourth, we will implement a coordinated approach to influence, identify, inhibit, and interdict those who seek to misuse scientific progress to harm innocent people.

These are the goals of the National Strategy that inform the U.S. approach and they have a few specific implications for the U.S. work between now and the Review Conference in December and beyond.

We will continue to seek timely and accurate information on the full spectrum of threats and challenges so that we can take appropriate actions to manage the evolving risk.

We will make clear, as we have in the National Strategy that the revolutionary advances that are taking place in the life sciences are overwhelmingly positive. We need to embrace and support those developments while taking balanced, appropriate, steps to minimize the risks posed by potential misuse.

To remain effective, the Biological Weapons Convention must continue to adapt to the wider range of biological threats we will face in this century. We need to continue to translate these strategic goals, which are shared overwhelmingly by the other States Parties to the BWC, to enhance the BWC still further.

We want to enhance the effectiveness of this Convention as the norm against biological weapons, through the U.S. actions and not only through the U.S. words. We have consulted widely, and we have listened widely, on how we can all benefit from a range of tools that increase mutual confidence; from specific confidence-building measures, to more frequent consultations, to proactive, national steps that demonstrate compliance by states.

We will seek endorsement of expanded efforts to prevent bioterrorism by strengthening national legislation and oversight in the States Party, fostering greater understanding of the scope of national implementation measures that the Convention requires and enlisting the support and cooperation of the international scientific and commercial sectors in these efforts.

We know that the best time for international assistance should come before, and not after, a biological weapons attack. We will continue to focus on providing targeted and sustainable international assistance, joined by other donors in the international community, aimed at building the national capacities in all countries to detect and respond to a disease outbreak, regardless of the cause, and identifying and addressing barriers to effective international response. We will take a multi-sectoral approach and seek assistance from other donors. …

More about the Issue

The intersessional process in between each Review Conference has been effective Ðand where the real work of the BWC has been done—more than in the Review Conference that will be in the spotlight in December. The intersessional process has brought together national security, public health, law enforcement, scientific and academic communities, private industry, and intergovernmental organizations that did not previously interact with the BWC, such as the World Health Organization, Food and Agriculture Organization, and the World Organization for Animal Health. The Biological Weapons Convention has become, and should be, fully utilized as a forum to share information with all states of the bilateral and regional activities that relate to the BWC, to consult with each other on new avenues of bilateral and multilateral engagement, and to seek the support of the international community for national protection efforts. These activities, those States Party now realize will enhance their real-world capability and real-world security.

Biological Weapons in 2011

United States views on international law (based on the document “Digest of U.S. Practice in International Law”): We would like the Review Conference in December to reinvigorate, or to give added vigor, to this intersessional process, to continue this expert-level interaction and to look to more concrete results in such discussions. For example, we think that the convening authority of the BWC could bring in the emergency management community in greater efforts to determine the capabilities and resources needed in the event of an outbreak. We could do a better job sharing lessons learned regarding regulations that are needed to assist efforts at response and recovery efforts. We should have in-depth discussions about the latest developments in science and technology that could affect the BWC and we should be very open within the U.S., and the other leading BWC members, about sharing how we comply with the U.S. BWC obligations.

Let me mention one more goal for this Review Conference for it is one of the U.S. oldest goals for the BWC and still valid today. We want to establish universal adherence. Universal membership will strengthen the global norm against the use of disease as a weapon and reinforce the international community’s determination that such use would be, as the preamble to the BWC states, “repugnant to the conscience of mankind.” There is reason to hope for additional membership. The process I have just described is becoming clear to others—that this process is not only about national security but also about their self-protection against a range of threats not just from other states but also from non-state actors, and all who have participated as States Party have gained in their capacity to respond to such threats. We think this gives added incentive to get those few states that have not yet become members of the BWC to join up and achieve this goal of universal adherence.

Just to sum up, the BWC and the parties to it have kept current with countering modern day threats. This is the right moment as we go to this Review Conference in December to reinforce the U.S. resolve to take additional practical steps to move forward jointly toward the U.S. greater mutual security.

More about Biological Weapons

On December 7, 2011, Secretary Clinton addressed the Seventh BWC Review Conference in Geneva, Switzerland. BWC review conferences are held every five years. This was the first time a U.S. secretary of state had addressed a BWC review conference. Secretary Clinton’s remarks, excerpted below, are available in full at (internet link) state.gov/secretary/rm/2011/12/178409.htm.

I want to start by acknowledging that the U.S. countries have accomplished a great deal together under the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. One hundred sixty-five states have now committed not to pursue these weapons, and I am delighted to welcome Burundi and Mozambique to the Convention, and I join in urging all states who have not yet done so to join.

President Obama has made it a top goal of his Administration to halt the spread of weapons of mass destruction, because we view the risk of a bioweapons attack as both a serious national security challenge and a foreign policy priority. In an age when people and diseases cross borders with growing ease, bioweapons are a transnational threat, and therefore we must protect against them with transnational action.

The nature of the problem is evolving. The advances in science and technology make it possible to both prevent and cure more diseases, but also easier for states and non-state actors to develop biological weapons. A crude, but effective, terrorist weapon can be made by using a small sample of any number of widely available pathogens, inexpensive equipment, and college-level chemistry and biology. Even as it becomes easier to develop these weapons, it remains extremely difficult—as you know—to detect them, because almost any biological research can serve dual purposes. The same equipment and technical knowledge used for legitimate research to save lives can also be used to manufacture deadly diseases.

So of course, we must continue the U.S. work to prevent states from acquiring biological weapons. And one of the unsung successes of the Convention is that it has engrained a norm among states against biological weapons. Even countries that have never joined the Convention no longer claim that acquiring such weapons is a legitimate goal. But unfortunately, the ability of terrorists and other non-state actors to develop and use these weapons is growing. And therefore, this must be a renewed focus of the U.S. efforts during the next 14 days, as well as the months and years ahead.

Developments

Two years ago, the Obama Administration released the U.S. national strategy for countering biological threats, which is a whole-of-government approach designed to protect the American people and improve the U.S. global capacity. We support the U.S. partners’ efforts to meet new international standards in disease preparedness, detection, and response. We are helping make laboratories safer and more secure, engaging 44 countries in these efforts this year. And since 2007, we’ve conducted more than a dozen workshops to help train public health and law enforcement officials.

But there is still more to do, and I want to briefly mention three areas. First, we need to bolster international confidence that all countries are living up to the U.S. obligations under the Convention. It is not possible, in the U.S. opinion, to create a verification regime that will achieve this goal. But we must take other steps. To begin with, we should revise the Convention’s annual reporting systems to ensure that each party is answering the right questions, such as what we are each all doing to guard against the misuse of biological materials.

Countries should also take their own measures to demonstrate transparency. Under the U.S. new Bio-Transparency and Openness Initiative, we will host an international forum on health and security to exchange views on biological threats and discuss the evolution of U.S. bioresearch programs. We will underscore that commitment by inviting a few state parties to the Convention to tour a U.S. biodefense facility next year, as Ambassador van den IJssel and the United Nations 1540 Committee did this past summer. And we will promote dialogue through exchanges among scientists from the United States and elsewhere. In short, we are intending and the U.S. meeting the U.S. obligation to the full letter and spirit of the treaty, and we wish to work with other nations to do so as well.

Second, we must strengthen each country’s ability to detect and respond to outbreaks and improve international coordination. As President Obama said earlier this year at the UN, “We must come together to prevent and detect and fight every kind of biological danger, whether it’s a pandemic like H1N1, or a terrorist threat, or a terrible disease.” Five years ago, 194 countries came together at the World Health Organization and committed to build the U.S. core capacities by June 2012, and we should redouble the U.S. efforts to meet that goal. We will support the WHO in this area, and I urge others to join us.

Finally, we need thoughtful international dialogue about the ways to maximize the benefits of scientific research and minimize the risks. For example, the emerging gene synthesis industry is making genetic material widely available. This obviously has many benefits for research, but it could also potentially be used to assemble the components of a deadly organism. So how do we balance the need for scientific freedom and innovation with the necessity of guarding against such risks? There is no easy answer, but it begins with open conversations among governments, the scientific community, and other stakeholders, in this forum and elsewhere. We have recently had the U.S. U.S. President’s Commission on Bioethics develop ethical principles that could be helpful in this dialogue, and we urge a discussion about them. Ambassador Kennedy and the U.S. team look forward to working with all of you for a strong set of recommendations.

And let me conclude by saying we know the biological threats we face today are new, but the U.S. commitment to face threats together is not. More than 85 years ago, after the horrors of World War I, the international community took a stand against the use of poison gases and bacteriological weapons. And nearly a half-century later, that shared commitment brought us together to adopt the Biological Weapons Convention. So in that same spirit, let us move forward to address the challenges we face together in the 21st century.

Details

Assistant Secretary Countryman provided a briefing on the outcome of the BWC Review Conference on December 23, 2011. Excerpts from that briefing appear below. The full text of the briefing is available at (internet link) state.gov/t/isn/rls/rm/179689.htm.

The United States is pleased with the outcome of the 7th Review Conference of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention that was adopted yesterday in Geneva. The final document adopted a program for what we call the intercessional period, the next five years before the next review conference, that will focus on three major topics: first, strengthening implementation of the convention, that is, the implementation legally and practically by each of the states party; second, a regular and systematic review of scientific and technological developments in the life sciences relevant to the convention; and third, continuing to build capacity to deal with disease outbreaks, including capacity building in bio-safety, bio-security, disease surveillance, preparedness, and response.

These are the three areas that the United States emphasized when Secretary Clinton spoke to the conference on December 7th, and we’re pleased, of course, that they are the focus of the final document. É

Chemical and Biological Weapons

In relation to the international law practice and chemical and biological weapons in this world legal Encyclopedia, please see the following section:

Arms Control, Disarmament, and Nonproliferation

About this subject:

Chemical Weapons

Note: there is detailed information and resources under these topics during the year 2013, covered by this entry on chemical and biological weapons in this law Encyclopedia.

Biological Weapons

In relation to the international law practice and Biological Weapons in this world legal Encyclopedia, please see the following section:

Use of Force, Arms Control, Disarmament, Nonproliferation

About this subject:

Nonproliferation, Arms Control, and Disarmament

Under this topic, in the Encyclopedia, find out information on Chemical and Biological Weapons. Note: there is detailed information and resources, in relation with these topics during the year 2011, covered by the entry, in this law Encyclopedia, about Biological weapons

Resources

See Also

• Use Of Force
• Arms Control
• Disarmament
• Nonproliferation
• Chemical Weapons
• Biological Weapons

Resources

Notes and References

• Information about Biological Weapons in the Encarta Online Encyclopedia

Guide to Biological Weapons