The Politics of Biological Disarmament - Deadly Cultures: Biological Weapons Since 1945 - page 304

CHAPTER 15
The Politics of
Biological Disarmament
MARIE ISABELLE CHEVRIER
The politics of biological weapons (BW) disarmament, cul-
minating in the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), are firmly
embedded in the predominant political paradigm prevailing in the post-
World War II world: the intense engrossment among major states with
the Cold War. The BWC is often described and praised as the first interna-
tional treaty banning possession of an entire class of weapons. The ex-
traordinary nature of that achievement is rarely analyzed in detail. More-
over, in banning an entire class of weapons the states negotiating the
BWC agreed upon an instrument that history has judged as remarkably
weak and in need of strengthening.
By examining the principal political elements of the development of
the BWC, this chapter seeks to answer two central questions: What was
the thinking behind the UK Draft Convention, and why did the West
agree to the weaker Soviet Draft Convention rather than insisting on ele-
ments in the stronger UK draft? Specifically, the UK Draft Convention
included a ban on research and on the use of BW, as well as more strin-
gent procedures to investigate alleged use, development, and production.
Why were these elements weakened or eliminated?
Earlier studies of the history of the BWC have focused on other ques-
tions. As part of its six-volume seminal study The Problem of Chemical and
Biological Warfare, SIPRI devoted an entire volume to CBW disarmament
negotiations. That volume contains a detailed history of the negotiations
in the United Nations General Assembly and the Geneva Disarmament
forum. 1 The study ends before the Soviet Draft Convention was pre-
sented in March 1971. The Soviet draft broke the impasse at the Confer-
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