Confidence‐building measures for the BTWC: Performance and potential

Chevrier, Marie Isabelle; Hunger, Iris

doi:10.1080/10736700008436823

Cited by 6 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…These have not reached universal compliance. Only a minority of the states parties regularly submit the CBM forms (Chevrier and Hunger 2000), and the contents of these are not always complete as exemplified by the Russian declaration of 1992. At the Third Review Conference of the BTWC in 1991 it was agreed that the states parties (when appropriate) should submit eleven declaration forms as part of the information exchange for confidence building (Final Declaration of the Third Review Conference 1991, 13-16).…”

Section: Socrates: Sin Is Ignorance (I)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Re-Evaluating Russia's Biological Weapons Policy, as Reflected in the Criminal Code and Official Admissions: Insubordination Leading to a President's Subordination

Knoph

Westerdahl

2006

Critical Reviews in Microbiology

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Half-heartedly acknowledged by the Russian Federation, the Soviet Union ran the world's largest offensive program for biological weapons, breaching the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. Russia criminalized biological weapons in 1993 only to decriminalize them in 1996, but in 2003 president Putin partly recriminalized them. None of these changes were declared within the Convention. Several well-known official statements, when reviewed in their context, turned out to admit to neither an offensive program nor a breach of the Convention. Thus, the Russian biological weapons policy is more ambiguous than usually depicted, and various policy shapers can be discerned.

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Section: Socrates: Sin Is Ignorance (I)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Re-Evaluating Russia's Biological Weapons Policy, as Reflected in the Criminal Code and Official Admissions: Insubordination Leading to a President's Subordination

Knoph

Westerdahl

2006

Critical Reviews in Microbiology

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“…The CBMs, adopted at the 1986 and 1991 Review Conferences, consist of 7 measures, A to G: Since the CBM mechanism was instituted, however, the majority of states have participated inconsistently or not at all, and the quality of the submitted information has been uneven. 4 Outreach and assistance provided by the Implementation Support Unit (ISU), established following the 2006 Review Conference to help administer the BWC, has contributed to an increased level of participation in the CBM mechanism. While 2010 witnessed the highest-ever participation in the CBM process, with 70 states submitting declarations, this still amounted to only 43% of state parties.…”

Section: Current Confidence-building Measuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modernizing Confidence-Building Measures for the Biological Weapons Convention

Koblentz

Chevrier

2011

Biosecurity and Bioterrorism: Biodefense Strategy, Practice, an

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The Seventh Review Conference of the Biological Weapons Convention in December 2011 provides an opportunity to modernize the treaty to better address the challenges of the 21st century. The key to this modernization is to redesign the treaty's Confidence-Building Measures (CBMs), the only formal mechanism for increasing transparency and demonstrating compliance with the treaty, to address changes in the global scientific, health, and security environments since the end of the Cold War. The scope of the CBMs should be expanded beyond state-run biological warfare programs to encompass a broader array of threats to global security, such as biological terrorism, laboratory accidents, dual-use research, and disease pandemics. Modernizing the CBM mechanism to take into account these new risks would extend the transparency-enhancing benefits of CBMs to a range of new and important topics, such as biosafety, laboratory biosecurity, and dual-use research oversight; make the CBMs and the treaty itself more relevant to the concerns and priorities of more states; and build on progress made during the recent series of intersessional meetings. To accomplish this, the CBMs need to be revised to shift their focus from hardware, the dual-use capabilities relevant to the treaty, to software, the political and legal institutions that govern the development and use of these capabilities. A more modern CBM mechanism should encourage greater participation in the confidence-building process, improve international cooperation against the full spectrum of biological risks, and promote the goal of universal membership in the treaty.

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“…Die aktuellen VBM-Formulare sind enthalten in DritteÜberprüfungskonferenz (1992: 25 -47). 13 Analysen der VBMs finden sich unter anderem inChevrier und Hunger 2000, Geißler 1990, Geißler 2000 und Hunger 1996 …”

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