Posted: April 2, 2017 | Author: JP Zanders | Filed under: Biological | Tags: BTWC, Budget, Disarmament, United Nations |
[Cross-posted from The Trench]
It was a remarkable act. On 21 March the Permanent Representatives to the UN Conference of Disarmament of the three co-depositories of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC)—the Russian Federation, United Kingdom and United States—wrote to their colleagues in Geneva to address the question of ‘assessed financial contributions to the Convention’. The matter is extremely urgent:
We have been informed that the funding currently available will only allow the [Implementation Support Unit – ISU] staff to have their contracts extended until end of April 2017. We, therefore, urge all States Parties to the Convention to pay their assessed contributions as soon as possible and to settle their arrears without delay. Without the prompt resolution of this issue, the structures and decisions agreed upon just a few months ago at the Eighth Review Conference will be in serious jeopardy.
But the lack of funding could spell trouble for the BTWC process too:
With respect to the Meeting of States Parties scheduled for December 2017, States Parties are kindly reminded that sufficient funds must be received in advance in order for the meeting to be organized as scheduled. The financial situation will be monitored regularly and a decision will need to be made three months prior to the meeting as to whether or not it can be held as planned.
For those in Geneva closely monitoring the health of the BTWC, the issue of non-payments is not new, but acquired greater urgency throughout 2016 to the point that the 8th Review Conference last November discussed the matter several times during the three-week meeting. As stated in the final document (p. 22, §12):
The Conference notes that, under new UN financial procedures, funds must be available before meetings can be held. The Conference requests States Parties to proceed with the payment of their share of the estimated costs as soon as the assessment notices have been received from the United Nations to help ensure that the meetings can be held as scheduled.
Not just the BTWC
The issue is not unique to the BTWC. Merely a few weeks before the 5th Review Conference of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (the so-called Inhumane Weapons Convention or CCW) was due to take place (12–16 December 2016) people were in despair whether it could be held at all. The CCW ISU even had to organise two informal briefings chaired by the President-designate on 8 and 14 November 2016 to discuss the financial challenges. As the CCW ISU wrote in its report covering the previous intersessional period:
An issue of significant importance in 2016 is the timely payment by States of their financial obligations under the framework Convention, Amended Protocol II and Protocol V to which they are High Contracting Parties, or meetings and conferences in which they participate as States not parties (observers). This has ended up being a major area of work for the ISU. The existing United Nations Financial Rules and Regulations have always required that funds are received in advance of incurring expenditures such as the organising of meetings and conferences under the CCW and the salary costs for the two ISU staff members. Recent financial accountability initiatives including the introduction of International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) and the introduction of the new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, Umoja, are bringing greater transparency as well as stricter enforcement of these rules and regulations. These initiatives will no longer allow the Secretariat to convene a meeting or renew contracts of staff members, unless the necessary cash has been received in advance and previous arrears are paid in full.
This document also detailed the resource burden the arrears place on the small ISU (2 persons) and UN Office of Disarmament Affairs (UNODA):
UNODA, the Financial Resources Management Service (FRMS) of the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG) and the ISU are working together to address the current financial situation. Letters were dispatched to States reminding them of their outstanding dues, comprising their 2016 assessed contributions and past unpaid arrears. The ISU directly contacted States, updated the website on the status of contributions and facilitated the sending of messages on behalf of the President-designate on the financial crisis concerning the Review Conference. In addition, the High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Mr. Kim Won-Soo, has brought this matter to the attention of the UN Member States in his statement at the UNGA’s First Committee and sent letters to all those States with outstanding dues.
In a letter similar to the one addressed to BTWC states parties dated 1 March, the UK’s Permanent Representative in his capacity of Chairperson-elect of the 2017 CCW Meeting urged states parties to meet their financial obligations:
Any outstanding arrears and the 2017 assessed contributions for the CCW must be received as soon as possible in order to ensure the continuity of the CCW Implementation Support Unit (ISU), particularly its staff members. Currently the funding available will only allow the ISU staff to have their contracts extended until the end of April 2017.
Blame it on Umoja …
The financial troubles affecting the implementation of multilateral disarmament and arms control treaties are not new. However, it is striking how last year they almost brought the work of agreements administered by the United Nations to a screeching halt. For treaties whose implementation is overseen by bodies outside the UN system, parties had to adopt specific measures to coax states into paying their arrears. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), having faced similar challenges for several years, has adopted multi-year payment plans. It can also coerce a recalcitrant member into paying by taking away its voting rights. Or by less formal measures … For instance, last year an ever louder suggestion circulated that the Technical Secretariat would no longer consider hiring Brazilian nationals until the country had fulfilled all its financial obligations. (On Brazil, more below.)
The United Nations adopted an organisation-wide resource planning system, which takes care of all staff and financial administration, including record-keeping, workflow and communications, as well as any activities undertaken by UN agencies. It controls the work of any UN operative even in the most far-flung places on this planet. Commonly known as Umoja—Swahili for ‘united’—it is former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s brainchild. It was rolled out in November 2015 but the inevitable growing pains became an immediate source of intense frustration among UN staff. As UN connoisseur Colum Lynch noted in Foreign Policy half a year later, the software required several years of development work at a cost of over $400 million. Still, he reported that because of the chaos it created people could go without pay for several months (a claim disputed by a UN spokesperson) and that the UN was struggling with outside contractors.
Umoja also places full administrative responsibility with the individual, irrespective of the person’s job description. There is little room for delegation or functional specialisation. Data input for the simplest of tasks, e.g. registering a travel mission, requires several pages of input. Organising a seminar halfway across the world against a tight deadline can be even more challenging, particularly if mandatory minimal bureaucratic timelines cannot be met. The slightest mistake blocks the whole process; a software glitch that fails, for example, to connect administration with finance to release the required funds can take many hours, if not days to locate people not just in the building where one works, but also at one’s destination. And when things seem to get arranged in Geneva, somebody in New York can still override the whole process, and without notification or explanation make different and unasked arrangements that suit nobody and end up costing a lot more. Of course, by the time such an intervention is nullified, original arrangements have been cancelled.
Umoja indeed concentrates a lot of bureaucratic power in New York, but has made administrative responsibility diffuse. Today people claim that Umoja works much more smoothly than in 2016. One may wonder whether this is the case, or whether UN staff is falling prey to some bureaucratic variant of the Stockholm syndrome.
But let us not digress too far. The core point concerning the rigidity imposed by Umoja is that even the smallest expense must have a specific budget line. Insufficient budgetary provision automatically entails that no money can be expended. Given the interconnectedness of all elements in Umoja’s process flow, the organisation of a meeting will therefore be automatically blocked.
… but it is really an individual responsibility of states parties
US$ 379,556.66. That is the deficit the BTWC was facing on 28 February. The budgeted expenditure for 2017 amounts to $1,109,500. Over one third of the money due has not yet been paid into the accounts. As the tables prepared by UNODA show, the nature of the deficit is even more hallucinating. Some arrears go as far back as 2001, year of the 5th Review Conference!
For the current year the deficit appears less dramatic at first sight: just under $27,000. In reality, however, the UN received only $759,796 in contributions. The remaining $322,767 comprises overpayments from states parties, money that in principle the UN ought to refund at the end of the year (i.e. 2016).
Thirteen out of 178 states parties owe UNODA money in excess of $10,000 (See Table 1). An additional 32 states are between 1,000 and $10,000 in arrears. The majority—107 states parties—have negative balances of less than $1000, of which 51 owe less than $100.
Twenty-six countries have paid a combined $322,767 in excess of what is due. In all but 8 cases the overpayment amounts to less than $1,000 and in many instances to less than $100. The overpayment by two countries stand out: the USA ($249,491 or 77.3%) and Saudi Arabia ($57,711 or 17.88%).
Table 2 shows that in seven cases the outstanding money is for 2017 only. A quick glance at the comprehensive table prepared by UNODA indicates this is also the case for many other countries.
However, the responsibility of one country for the financial crisis is overwhelming: Brazil owns 78.6% of the total deficit of the BTWC. With the exception of 2011 it has defaulted on its financial obligations or paid its dues only partially since 2001. While it is true that 16 other states also owe UNODA money from before 2015, their combined outstanding balance amounts to $75,678. (As Table 2 demonstrates, three of those countries are also listed among the states parties owing more than $10,000 and are responsible for $57,472 of that debt).
Urgent response needed
While one can easily envisage Umoja provoking computer screens to fly across offices, it still remains the responsibility of individual states parties to meet their commitments under international treaties. In fact, it is because of Umoja that the scale of the disarmament deficit could be laid out in detail. And the management tool is discretely being deployed to diplomatically name and shame recalcitrant payers.
In October 2016, a mere two weeks before the start of the 8th Review Conference, the ISU prepared the first information document on the status of assessed contributions to the BTWC from 2001 up to 21 October 2016. The total outstanding balance was then $196,964. Comparison with the table issued in February shows that many states parties promptly responded, leading to a different pattern in overdue balances. The overall sum due increased by over $80,000, but as indicated earlier, many states still have to transfer their contribution for 2017.
At first sight, the situation may not appear as dramatic as suggested in the letter by the co-depositories. However, this is where Umoja raises its head again. Received funds have to be spread over different budget lines. Some of these budget lines will not be used until a specific event takes place (e.g., document printing or interpretation for a meeting); other ones cover regular expenditure (e.g., salaries). Umoja is all but inflexible about money transfers from one budget post to another (even temporarily). So, if the budget line for salaries is not replenished in time, then the ISU staff goes without remuneration, even if money were available for documents or interpretation to bridge a temporary gap. Alternatively, even with salary cost fully funded for some months, if insufficient money is available to organise an event, such as a meeting of states parties, then that event is in jeopardy. This explains the urgency in the call for contributions. The ISU cannot draw on a working capital fund like the OPCW, which it used to cover temporary financial shortcomings, or reserves. And while the ISU is placed under UNODA, it does not belong to the core UN units. As a consequence, it cannot draw on central UN reserves or spare resources in case of a temporary shortfall. (The same goes when an ISU staff member is on sick or maternity leave: because the absentee continues to receive remuneration, no other person can be hired on the same budget line and the ISU cannot draw on a central pool of UN staff resources.)
Looking at how the OPCW addresses unpaid dues by states parties, it is clear that Umoja imposes bureaucratic rigidity and limits human initiative. Yet, in all likelihood adaptation of the way in which the BTWC is administered will alleviate, if not resolve the current financial anxieties. Still, this does not absolve the responsibility of individual states parties to pay their dues in time.
Brazil bears an overwhelming responsibility for the current crisis: it owns more than three-quarters of the overall deficit of the BTWC. Its arrears go back a decade and a half. This is not the consequence of a single incident or forgetfulness. The period in question covers moments of more than average GDP growth as well as the recession of the past two years. The problem manifests itself is different disarmament and arms control forums, including the OPCW. Last summer Brazilian officials indicated publicly and privately that money was being made available to address this deficit of the BTWC. However, comparing the UNODA tables presented in October 2016 and February 2017 reveals no reduction in the outstanding balance. Quite on the contrary.
It will be up to the BTWC states parties and the highest political level in the United Nations to bear pressure on Brazil to resolve this matter urgently.
Posted: December 13, 2016 | Author: JP Zanders | Filed under: Biological | Tags: Africa, Asia, BTWC, Disarmament, Eastern Europe, European Union, Implementation, Latin America, Review conference |
… the lava continues to flow unseen by the casual observer standing above
On 3 November I was invited to speak at an international conference in Brussels organised by the European Union (EU) Non-Proliferation Consortium. The session was called: The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) – Maintaining Relevance. I found the title intriguing. Is the BTWC losing its relevance one way or another? Is this treaty in jeopardy?
Brasil’s BW preparedness: demonstration during the Brasilia workshop (23 August 2016)
A widely shared opinion has it that the BTWC is a weak treaty. Yet always unspoken remain the criteria by which people assess the treaty’s weakness. They often point to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) as a strong agreement because it has an international organisation, a verification regime and mechanisms to enforce compliance. Notwithstanding, in its almost twenty years of existence, war and terrorism in the Middle East accounts for about 2,000 fatalities as a direct consequence of chemical warfare and terrorism with chemical weapons. The BTWC, in contrast, lacks an international organisation or verification mechanism, yet in its 41 years since entry into force, deliberate use of disease or toxins has killed fewer than 100 persons. What does that say about the strength of a treaty?
Moreover, the BTWC is actually a very active treaty. Since 1991—the 3rd Review Conference—states parties have come together in Geneva at least twice a year, sometimes even more, particularly while negotiating a legally-binding protocol between 1997 and 2001. Of course there is a lot of frustration with the formal process and its lack of tangible progress in upgrading the treaty, its institutional support and procedures. In contrast a lot moves on the local and regional levels.
The BTWC World Tour 2016
To that conclusion I arrived after having organised four regional and sub-regional seminars between March and the end of September 2016 on behalf of the BTWC Implementation Support Unit (ISU). Those meetings took place in the framework of the EU Council Decision 2016/51 of 18 January 2016 supporting the BTWC and are part of a much broader package of activities envisaged between 2016 and 2019.
This Council Decision is the fourth in a series over the past decade. The first one covered the period 2006–08; the second one 2009–11 and the third one 2012–15. In total the EU has now invested some 6.3 million Euros in the strengthening of the BTWC, including 2.3 million for the current programme.
En route to Brasilia: The island of Madeira as seen from BioForce One (17 August 2016)
As Director of the international non-governmental organisation BioWeapons Prevention Project, I had the privilege of being entrusted with the implementation of the first Joint Action (as actionable Council Decisions were then known), part of which was designed to prepare the 6th Review Conference at the end of 2006. At this point the ISU, which was to carry out the next EU support plans, had not yet been established .The Joint action consisted mainly of BTWC universalisation and national implementation assistance activities. The former comprised five regional seminars: Southern and East Africa (Nairobi, Kenya on 21–22 June 2006; Asia and the Pacific Islands (Bangkok, Thailand on 8–9 November 2006; Latin America and the Caribbean (San José, Costa Rica on 18–19 January 2007); West and Central Africa (Dakar, Senegal on 17–18 April 2007); and the Middle East (Rome, Italy on 16–17 April 2008).
Ed Force One landing in the East Midlands, UK (June 2016)
The current Council Decision envisages four regional workshops in preparation of the 8th Review Conference to be held between 7 and 25 November 2016. Because of the short intervals between the events, the series became jokingly known as the BTWC World Tour 2016 and the organisers flew on BioForce One, a wink to Iron Maiden’s Ed Force One carrying the rock band’s members and crew to concert venues across the planet.
The four events targeted Eastern Europe and Central Asia (Astana, Kazakhstan on 15–16 June); South and Central America (Brasilia, Brazil on 22–23 August); South and South-East Asia (New Delhi, India on 29–30 August) and Africa (African Union Commission, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on 13–14 September).
My remarks at the EU Non-Proliferation Consortium conference drew on insights from the four regional workshops this year and earlier experiences with the first EU Joint Action.
Evolution of a treaty regime and trends in state practice
Anyone participating in meetings on science and technology review, developments in industrial capacities, new production processes and technologies hears a lot of anxiety and a lot of talk of threats to the convention or possible weakening of the norm. However, such developments never take place in a vacuum, even if substantive progress in the Geneva negotiations remains elusive. Looking at several states that participated in this year’s regional meetings, I can only observe how much things have evolved.
India is a prime example. I recall a seminar the BWPP organised at the United Nations in Geneva in 2004 or 2005. We had an Indian scientist present and she described how her country was on the verge of becoming a net exporter of biotechnology, whereas before it had been a net importer. She predicted that India would soon assume new types of responsibilities to govern the new science and technologies. Last August I was in New Delhi for the third regional seminar. At one point a discussion between Iran and India over the latter country’s export control legislation started up. It was interesting to note the evolution in India’s position on export controls. It had adopted principles that only 5–10 years ago were extremely controversial internationally. China has undergone a similar evolution with respect to national technology transfer policies and its adoption of a certain rationale behind them. These developments testify to a convergence of ideas, a convergence of approaches among states in different parts of the world. In turn they lead to circumstances that enable and promote cross-continental, cross-regional cooperation in a number of issue areas. In preparation of the 8th Review Conference the ISU website contains several working papers written jointly by European and Asian states, European and South American states, or the United States with partners in different regions. They illustrate emerging possibilities for the future of the BTWC. They do not yet translate into formal agreements or new understandings, but they testify to evolving practice that keeps the convention alive despite frequent setbacks in multilateral negotiations.
A second aspect of the BTWC’s vitality that emerged from the four regional seminars concern the different facets of international assistance and cooperation for peaceful purposes under Article X. Exchanges between especially some members of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and the Western Group in Geneva are usually politically highly charged. Similar confrontations one can also observe in meetings of the decision-making bodies of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) with respect to the comparable Article XI of the CWC. Yet, over the past decade parties to the BTWC have managed to advance matching expectations with obligations on both the global and regional levels.
After the Astana workshop: Amb. György Molnár, then President-Designate 8th RevCon; Daniel Feakes, Chief ISU; Jean Pascal Zanders, then UNODA; and Emil Kazakov, European External Action Service (16 June 2016)
First, the intersessional process has tended to focus on actionable programme items. In Geneva states parties often discuss Article X in broad, abstract principles. As already mentioned, they also tend to pit the NAM against the Western Group. Several vocal NAM members view national export controls as a violation of the convention and consequently place the prohibition on transferring biological weapons (BW) and relevant technologies to any recipient whatsoever in Article III in direct opposition to Article X. The intersessional process, in contrast, encourages states parties to look at the quality of their national implementation of obligations and responsibilities. This has led them to articulate concrete needs and requests, including under Article X, which in turn made it easier for potential donor countries to formulate offers for assistance and cooperation. Matching happens bilaterally or interregionally with the BTWC ISU often acting as a facilitator. To most developing countries the feckless ritual standoff with its sweeping statements in Geneva runs counter to specific national needs.
Second, certain developing countries have taken a regional lead in technology, science development, and so on. Some even work at the leading edge globally. Over the past few years they have initiated processes whereby they transfer relevant knowledge, expertise and practices to neighbouring states. In other words, regional patterns of cooperation, training and education explicitly undertaken under Article X have emerged. Argentina plays such a role in South America. Similar initiatives have arisen in the context of ASEAN, particularly in the area of biorisk management. Such concrete regional assistance also includes help with national implementation legislation, the submission of the Confidence Building Measures (CBMs), and so forth.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: December 3, 2016 | Author: JP Zanders | Filed under: Chemical | Tags: CWC, Disarmament, Education, OPCW, Public outreach |
Exactly one year ago today, the Conference of the States Parties in its 20th session decided on the establishment of the Advisory Board on Education and Outreach (ABEO) as a subsidiary body to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
In 2016 the 15-member board met twice and formulated its first sets of recommendations. On 1 December I reported on the ABEO’s work to the 21st session of the Conference of the States Parties. Due to a 7-minute time restriction I could deliver only a summary of the most important points. Below is the full text of the statement as circulated to the states party to the Chemical Weapons Convention.
[Cross-posted from The Trench]
Statement by Dr Jean Pascal Zanders
Chairperson of the OPCW Advisory Board on Education and Outreach, to the 21st Conference of the States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention
The Hague, 1 December 2016
Mr Chairperson,
Director-General,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
At last year’s Conference of the States Parties you decided to establish the Advisory Board on Education and Outreach (ABEO) as one of the subsidiary bodies of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). The ABEO received as mandate to advise the Director-General or States Parties on matters of education, outreach and awareness-raising, and public diplomacy concerning the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and its international and domestic implementation in relation to States Parties and key stakeholder communities. Put differently, it seeks strategies to assist the OPCW with deepening the involvement of the stakeholder communities in preventing the re-emergence of chemical weapons.
The Director-General appointed 15 members to the Board, whose mandate started on 1 January of this year. Based on the principle of equitable regional distribution, they comprise:
- 3 persons from Africa: Kenya, Morocco and South Africa;
- 4 persons from Asia: China, India, Iraq and Japan;
- 2 persons from Eastern Europe: Poland and the Russian Federation;
- 2 persons from Latin America and the Carribean: Argentina and Mexico; and
- 4 persons from Western Europe and Other States: Belgium, Germany, the United kingdom and the United States.
Two members—Prof WANG Wencai (China) and Dr Austin ALUOCH (Kenya)—are Alumni of the Associate Programme. One member, Prof. Alastair Hay (UK), is a recipient of the 2015 OPCW–The Hague Award. While the ABEO resulted from groundwork laid by the OPCW Scientific Advisory Board (SAB), ABEO membership includes not just chemists and other scientists, but also experts with backgrounds in the political sciences, history, diplomacy, as well as persons well versed with issues in chemical weapon disarmament, education and outreach strategies, or the functioning of National Authorities.
In addition, and as a first for Advisory Boards, the ABEO can also benefit from the expertise of select observers. Observers are non-permanent and they are invited in function of the meeting agenda. However, the Rules of Procedure stipulate that a representative of the International Union for Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is to participate in the ABEO’s work as a permanent observer. At their second meeting in October 2016, the Board Members decided to accord a similar status to a representative from the International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA).
In its first year of activity the ABEO has met twice, in April and October 2016. With the help from the Technical Secretariat an electronic discussion platform has been set up, so that Members can continue to discuss and develop recommendations in the so-called ‘intersessional period’. This electronic platform allows the setting up of sub-groups in which ABEO Members, as well as observers, can develop ideas and discuss working papers on topics decided at the preceding meeting. The goal is to have well-conceived proposals for final consideration and adoption by the full Board.
Towards common understandings
Mr Chairperson, the first meeting (28–29 April 2016) focussed mainly on team building. Each member and observer presented an overview of their education and outreach activities, thereby highlighting objectives and describing their respective methodologies. The Board furthermore heard detailed briefings by Technical Secretariat staff members. Substantive work developed along two tracks, namely specific requests submitted to the Board by the Director-General requiring short-term replies, and identification of strategic-level, i.e., longer-term aspects of developing education and outreach methodologies.
Strategic-level thinking implies a need for common understandings for key concepts and terms as well as identification of key stakeholder communities. It also implies the identification, elaboration and prioritisation of issue areas, the development of multi- and cross-disciplinary approaches to education and outreach, and the permanent evaluation of tasks and activities in function of changing circumstances under which the OPCW must continue to function.
The ABEO proceeded in its second meeting (4-6 October 2016) with identifying key stakeholder communities and plotting how they and the OPCW interact with each other.
Interactions between stakeholder communities and the OPCW
As the CWC effectuated a clear division of labour between the Technical Secretariat and the National Authorities it followed naturally that stakeholdership in the convention exists on both the international and national levels. From the exercise also followed the insight that certain stakeholder communities may be targets of the OPCW’s education and outreach activities, while they may be partners under different circumstances. The press is a case in point. A well-conceived public diplomacy strategy can clarify to journalists the CWC’s intricacies, the functioning of the OPCW and the tasks and responsibilities of the Technical Secretariat in its various missions. When the OPCW makes the headlines, the media will be better situated to reflect accurately the challenges and opportunities facing the community of States Parties.
For its deliberations, the ABEO accepted working definitions for concepts such as education, outreach, training and public diplomacy. Such differentiation in turn enabled identification of primary strategies to be developed under each concept in function of the type of stakeholder community to be engaged. Moreover, it will also enable the ABEO to take into consideration different regional and local cultural approaches to education and outreach. The ABEO Members are agreed that no single methodology can fit all circumstances.
First substantive recommendations
The upcoming 20th Anniversary of the CWC’s entry into force was one area that preoccupied the ABEO in its first year. During the intersessional period the subgroup dedicated to the topic already submitted to the Technical Secretariat a list with concrete programme elements and activity proposals. At the second meeting the ABEO formulated more conceptual recommendations. These include:
- to brand the celebration as ‘20th Anniversary Year’ to emphasise that a series of activities rather than a single event will commemorate the CWC’s entry into force, as well as provide a common heading for all regional and national commemorative activities;
- to set up a website dedicated to the 20th Anniversary Year with information about events. A celebration-specific logo could be adopted;
- to promote besides the major event in The Hague global, regional and national celebration;
- to ensure OPCW strategic outreach to stakeholders. The 20th anniversary celebration in The Hague should include senior representatives of the sciences and industry. For other activities, appropriate regional or international industry and scientific organisations ought to be invited;
- to celebrate the science behind the effectiveness of the OPCW in meeting its mandate in regional or national events. These could be organised back-to-back with regional National Authority events and involve key partners, such as academe and industry;
- to produce a film on the destruction of chemical weapons so as to preserve some filmic record of these processes for future education of scientists and engineers;
- to provide early notification to enable organisational planning of regional and local events; provide funds to initiate and support such regional and organisation; and create outreach material on the OPCW and the CWC, specific to the 20th Anniversary Year, for broad distribution.
A global campaign condemning the use of the industrial toxic chemicals—chlorine in particular—as weapons led to many letters by chemical associations worldwide and increasingly by chemical industry associations being sent to the Director-General. The ABEO recommended that these letters be publicised on the OPCW website. It gives me great pleasure to note that this recommendation was implemented last Tuesday (29 November).
The ABEO also recommended a thorough review and overhaul of the OPCW’s public diplomacy strategy in function of permanent, systematic engagement with stakeholder communities.
Other recommendations addressed youth outreach and engagement of civil society during sessions of the Conference of the States Parties. Some elements are already being implemented, such as briefings on the workings of the Technical Secretariat to the members of the CWC Coalition attending the 21st Conference of the States Parties.
Current activities
Mr Chairperson, in preparation for its third meeting next March, an ABEO working group is considering in detail how to assist National Authorities with carrying out education and outreach activities. In particular it will seek to enhance regional coordination among National Authorities, encourage use of existing educational materials, and stimulate ideas for developing new ones. Online educational tools already developed by the Technical Secretariat will be assessed and recommendations for methodological harmonisation and other improvements submitted.
A second working group is looking into ways to engage specific stakeholder communities, in particular scientific associations, industry, professional organisations and other expert communities. Primary themes to be developed include raising barriers against erosion of norm against chemical weapons and the CWC, means and ways of keeping those stakeholder communities informed and engaged in Convention-mandated activities, and engaging them in the further development of the treaty regime in light of the changing national or international environments in which the CWC must remain relevant.
Other working groups of ABEO Members will consider recommendations on how to address immediate challenges to the CWC regime as part of a public diplomacy strategy, ways to engage with other international organisations in promoting peace and disarmament education.
Work will also continue on ‘Longer-term strategies’, ‘Outreach at the regional, national and local levels’ and ‘Youth outreach’.
Besides these activities ABEO Members have also actively participated in regional seminars for National Authorities organised by the Technical Secretariat. In my capacity as Chairperson I made presentations on opportunities for education and outreach in the Workshop on Article XI implementation and the Annual Meeting for National Authorities. Finally, the ABEO and the Scientific Advisory Board have established a working relationship and plan to collaborate and consult with each other in areas of common interest.
Mr Chairperson, by way of conclusion I wish to thank on behalf of the Board Members all States Parties that have recognised the work of the ABEO in its first year and support its goal of promoting substantive interaction between the OPCW and its many stakeholder constituencies with a view of safeguarding the world from a re-emergence of chemical weapons. We are looking forward to your continuing endorsement, including in a more tangible form when we will set up a trust fund to support our projects and activities. And as a final reminder: you the States Parties can also request the ABEO’s advice on pertinent matters.
I request that the full text of this statement be considered as an official document of the Conference and published on the OPCW public website.
I thank you.
Posted: November 25, 2016 | Author: JP Zanders | Filed under: Biological | Tags: BTWC, Disarmament, Iran, Review conference |
[Cross-posted from The Trench]
The 8th Review Conference of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) ended today, 25 November, in great disappointment. While during the preparatory meetings in April and August it was already clear that the exercise would be difficult, nobody really anticipated that so much would be lost in two days. There is even less than in the previous final documents: the meetings of experts (MX) held during the summer have been stopped; the meetings of states parties (MSP) have been preserved, but without a sense of purpose. Except as a way to preserve the Implementation Support Unit (ISU).
The number of staff of the ISU was not increased. The still incomprehensible Spanish veto against the expansion of the ISU in the final two hours of the 7th Review Conference in 2011 (despite EU consensus to support such increase of staff) is having lasting consequences of ever greater impact. I guess that we can be grateful that nobody raised the flag to argue that with the elimination of the MX the ISU would have a reduced workload (not exactly true, but then politics are about perceptions, not truths).
In their final declarations many countries, especially from the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), put the blame squarely on Iran (without naming the country). This country’s obsession with returning to a negotiation format like the Ad Hoc Group to achieve the higher goal of a legally binding instrument—possibly with the sole goal of antagonising the USA—led it to exploit to the fullest to principle of consensus decision-making to torpedo any effort at compromise. Many NAM countries—often developing nations—lost out on concrete opportunities for international cooperation and assistance. They were acutely aware of what they were losing. Having participated in four review conferences, I cannot remember so much direct criticism directed against one of their own.
More was on offer, and for a moment in the late morning and early afternoon expectations rose that a meaningful outcome might still be possible. By 4pm those hopes were dashed; even the continued existence of the ISU was in doubt. Fortunately, that danger was averted.
I will write up some personal recollections and impressions over the next week or so. There were more dynamics driving the negotiations that prevented useful compromises during the endgame.
Meanwhile, I have scanned the final document and the budget assessment (BTWC 8th RevCon – Final doc (Scan)) as it was distributed to delegates. These documents contain typographical and grammatical errors. A clean version will soon be published by the ISU.
Posted: October 23, 2016 | Author: JP Zanders | Filed under: Biological | Tags: BTWC, Disarmament, European Union, Imlementation, Universalisation |
[‘Cross-posted from The Trench]
Now one month ago, my contract with the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) ended. It was an unexpected 6-month stint to assist the Implementation Support Unit (ISU) of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) with organising a series of four regional workshops in preparation of the 8th Review Conference of the BTWC next month. These workshops were sponsored by the European Union (EU) under Council Decision CFSP/2016/51 of 18 January 2016 (Project 4). They targeted Eastern Europe and Central Asia (Astana, Kazakhstan on 15–16 June), Latin America (Brasilia, Brazil on 22–23 August), South and South-East Asia (New Delhi, India on 29–30 August), and Africa (African Union Commission, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on 13–14 September).
One consequence was of course that silence descended over The Trench. A UN contract automatically implied that any statement, any article or other public contribution had to be vetted by persons in higher pay brackets. At times this made things difficult for me, as my colleagues could testify. Indeed, so much happened during those six months: the two meetings of the Preparatory Commission of the BTWC Review Conference in April and August, a Russian proposal to negotiate a new treaty on terrorism with chemical weapons (an idea that incredibly was welcomed in the tall corridors of the UN in Geneva on the argument that is would give the otiose Conference on Disarmament something concrete to work on), the publication of the third report of the Joint Investigative Mission (JIM) on the use of chemical weapons (CW) in Syria, new allegations of CW use in both Iraq and Syria, and, of course, the outcomes of the work that I was doing in support of the BTWC.
Essence
But the project also offered many joys. There was the opportunity to participate once again in one of the EU’s signature programmes in support of disarmament and non-proliferation. Indeed, ‘once again’. The current EU Council Decision is the fourth in support of the BTWC since 2006. Ten years ago, before the 6th Review Conference set up the ISU, I had the pleasure as director of the BioWeapons Prevention Project (BWPP) of being entrusted with the implementation of the first Joint Action (as the decision was then called). During its 2-year running period the BWPP organised three preparatory meetings for diplomats and four regional conferences (South-East Africa, South-East Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Middle East). It also laid the foundations for EU assistance with national implementation of the BTWC obligations to requesting states parties. (See the web page maintained by the ISU.)
From this first Joint Action I took away how expectations from the convention in capitals could be quite different from issues being put forward in the diplomatic gatherings in Geneva. And that there was not always effective communication between the Geneva-based missions and their respective capitals. It was indeed a pleasure to note how matters have improved considerably over the past decade, but a lot of work remains. Another lesson identified was that irrespective of whether government officials were approached top-down (as in the case of the EU Council, which acted through the foreign ministries) or bottom-up (as the BWPP was doing via local civil society outreach and education), the problems encountered were quite similar. Indeed, stakeholders in the convention — whether ministries or other government agencies, parliamentarians, scientists and academics, or civil society entities — had to be identified and brought together. In June 2008 this insight led to a Norwegian-sponsored initiative for a combined approach in Malawi to promote the country’s ratification of the BTWC. With the help of local and regional network members the BWPP identified and invited a range of governmental and non-governmental stakeholders and parliamentarians to a seminar in Lilongwe, which eventually proved to be the first step along the path towards ratification.
A second joy was the ability to engage with officials responsible for BTWC matters in capitals. Things had definitely improved over the past decade. People participating in the regional workshops came from different backgrounds, but all had awareness of the BTWC and core challenges facing the convention. I also noticed the impact of years of regional interaction and cooperation among officials, scientists and other experts, meaning that the debates were driven by shared interests and understandings as well as common concerns. Whereas during the first Joint Action a lot of effort went into explaining the basics of the BTWC and the reasons why countries should be concerned by possible biological weapon-related threats in their region, today the regional variations in assessing challenges and proffered solutions envelop disarmament with a much richer texture than can ever be appreciated in the meeting rooms of the UN. Indeed, if one conclusion can be drawn from the 2016 BTWC World Tour (as I started calling the series of events on Twitter – see, e.g., here) then it must be that disarmament actually lives. Great progress is being made with the implementation of the BTWC (and its norm against the weaponisation of disease and the life sciences) on the local and regional levels, even if the lack of outcomes at meetings in Geneva can be the source of intense frustration. This less visible ‘disarmament in (daily) action’ is quite different from ten years ago, if it then existed at all.
The hard shoulder
And a third and final joy was to be able to collaborate with the ISU and the Geneva Office of UNODA. I met great people who managed to run happy ships despite the great stress that more than occasionally permeated all aspects of work. Whether it was battling the UN’s bureaucracy (epitomised by UMOJA — Swahili for ‘united’ — an on-line administrative management tool that is supposed to bring together every branch and twig of the UN family, but actually represents an extensive centralisation of bureaucratic power in New York accompanied by complete diffusion of responsibility), changing or lack of timely decisions by states parties, or meeting short-notice deadlines, there was always occasion for a joke to make people get back to their desks with a smile. Seldom a harsh word, and a lot of mutual support. As an outsider on the inside, I definitely appreciated the certainty of backup when everything appeared to be going down the drain. Having experienced the BTWC process as a civil society operator and a member of the Belgian and EU delegations, this third angle was definitely most instructive. Another facet of ‘disarmament in motion’, for sure. And one the outside world appreciates little, alas.
A state of mind
Over the next weeks, as the BTWC 8th Review Conference takes off hopefully for a successful flight, I will write up more of my impressions of disarmament implementation, as well as comment on developments around the world. Despite all the great experiences of the past half year, it is good to be back in The Trench and to be able to freely shout out over the din out there.
Posted: March 17, 2016 | Author: JP Zanders | Filed under: Biological, Chemical | Tags: BTWC, CWC, Disarmament, International Humanitarian Law, international law, OPCW, Riot control agent |
Book review
Michael Crowley, Chemical Control: Regulation of Incapacitating Chemical Agent Weapons, Riot Control Agents and their Means of Delivery (Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke, 2015), 378p.
Anybody who has attended one of Michael Crowley’s annual presentations at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) on the challenges posed by riot control and incapacitating agents for the future of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) knows his passion for the subject matter. And his overwhelming knowledge about the latest developments in science, technology, industry and government policies. These characteristics also typify his book on the topic, Chemical Control, published late last year.
The book can be read on three levels:
- as an almost encyclopaedic presentation of facts,
- as an in-depth analysis of the regulatory regimes pertaining to chemical crowd control agents, which leads to concrete policy recommendations, and
- as a treatise on the analytical framework that has guided the research and the book structure.
Each level has merit in its own right. The third one, however, lifts this book above many other monographs on weaponry. Not just because of the ways in which it has informed Crowley’s research and analysis, but because it opens windows to fundamental debates on the purpose of disarmament and arms control today and tomorrow. He was right to resist calling his analytical framework a theory, but it nevertheless contains elements of theory. He formulates certain assumptions, but the book’s primary goals unfortunately do not give him the space to discuss them in depth. Because Crowley fundamentally questions some traditional understandings of the purpose of disarmament and arms control, he lays down an intellectual challenge that disarmament theorists or international lawyers cannot ignore.
A rich data source
The first level is that of the researcher’s data paradise. The monograph offers highly technical and detailed information on the nature of riot control and incapacitating agents and their delivery systems, the research and development behind them, where they are being manufactured and how they are traded, and most importantly for the other levels on which the book can be read, where and how they are being used.
Chemical warfare has its fair share of horror stories. About the impact of toxic chemicals on the body—from the painful and slow-healing blistering of the skin by mustard agents to the uncontrollable convulsions caused by exposure to sarin or other nerve agents. About the human experiments conducted not just in the Japanese prisoner of war camps in China in the Second World War or the dungeons of the darkest totalitarian regimes, but also in the bastions of Western democracy. Until today veterans in the UK and the USA, for example, are fighting to have their contribution to the national defence effort officially recognised and receive adequate compensation and health care—if they are still alive.
However, it is quite a different present-day horror story to read that quite a few states use incapacitants and riot control agents (such as tear gas)—toxic chemicals that some try to sell to public opinion as so-called non-lethal or humane weapons—to torture prisoners or regime opponents. Page after page, table after table Crowley details national practices of certain countries. They beggar belief were it not for the fact that source references make up two-thirds of the pages with tables.
Crowley methodically presents the different types of agent together with their characteristics and consequences after exposure, the country armament programmes and practices, and incidents. He never meant those pages to be read in a systematic way; they are detailed reference materials for researchers worldwide. In that sense he comes as close as possible to an encyclopaedic treatment of the subject matter. Future reports by him and other researchers will have to update the data sets.
If assimilation of this wealth of data might appear daunting, then section introductions and conclusions pull the main strands of his empirical analysis neatly together.
Considerations for policy shapers and makers
The second level is that of policy advice. I must admit that when I first saw the table of contents and noticed that the final chapter addressed conclusions and recommendations I had concerns about the substance of the book. It is one thing to undertake solid empirical research; it is quite a different thing to lay out arguments (and thereby present data selectively) in support of policy recommendations. Too often such treatises display superior argumentative logic, all the while lacking foundation in factual reality. Or they may sink to the level of wholly speculative ‘may and might’ analyses spinning hypothetical, often worst-case scenarios whose projected consequences then inform policy recommendations.
To my relief Crowley avoids this trap because a solid analytical framework structures his analysis (see the third level below). Thus after having laid out the technical aspects and national programmes of crowd control agents, he moves to the regulatory regimes. Again he proceeds systematically. In what amounts to over half of the book, he devotes a chapter each to arms control and disarmament law, international humanitarian law, human rights law, international criminal law, technology transfer control regimes, and UN drug control conventions. For each of the treaties, regulations, policy declarations, or informal arrangements (such as the Australia Group or Wassenaar Arrangement) Crowley presents the reader with a summary of the objectives and tools, an analysis of their implementation, and options for amelioration.
In the penultimate chapter he examines how civil society can contribute to the strengthening and implementation of the respective regimes. It comprises a comprehensive overview of ideas that have been explored in the fields of chemical and biological weapon control over the past decade and a half, as well as various initiatives whose primary concern have been the humanitarian and human rights consequences of the application of crowd control agents. In the process the author comments on such activities and suggests further options and improvements.
Crowley’s recommendations are rooted in this detailed analysis. He identifies areas of action where governments (and by extension, intergovernmental organisations) have to assume their responsibilities with regard to the strengthening and implementation of the international rules. He also considers how civil society constituencies can contribute to the strengthening of existing tools (e.g., through the development of ethical and professional codes of conduct, educational initiatives, etc.) or develop independent initiatives to track developments (e.g., open source monitoring of the use of crowd control agents or the political and technological imperatives for their further development and international commercialisation) with a view of holding policy makers accountable.
The final chapter thus comprises succinct summaries of the issues treated in the preceding chapters and related policy recommendations.
Analytical framework
As already indicated in the introduction, to me the best aspect of the book is the analytical framework. Crowley calls it ‘holistic arms control’ (HAC). It concentrates on existing arms control and disarmament measures, but seeks to expand on the numbers and types of regulatory measures and broaden the range of possible stakeholders.
The ambition is not small: he must weave a net whose meshes are sufficiently wide to catch all relevant data, while small enough to filter out irrelevant elements. Moreover, his construct is multidimensional, capturing the technologies together with national and human security concerns of inappropriate use, all relevant international legal regimes and other types of regulation together with the relative strengths and weaknesses, and possible strategies to reinforce all barriers against misuse of crowd control chemicals.
He deconstructs this ambition in the opening chapter and in the process outlines a step by step methodology that will form the backbone for the whole book. Cowley’s rigid adherence to the model contributes significantly to the readability of his analysis: throughout the reader remains aware of the stage of analysis and when particular questions are likely to be addressed. At the same time, he leaves the reader with a strong sense of comprehensiveness by bringing in many elements that one might not immediately consider when touching upon the subject of incapacitating and riot control agents. His discussion of the 1971 UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances is but one example.
A theoretical knot
However, the HAC framework is not merely analytical, it is also aspirational. It carries elements of theory formation that offer the perspective of substantive debates on the purpose of disarmament in fast changing times. As the author states (p.4):
Recognizing that reliance upon a single disarmament or arms control agreement alone would not guarantee success, scholars have explored a number of concepts, seeking to broaden the range of possible regulatory mechanisms.
His analysis is therefore also aspirational:
Although the proposed HAC analytical framework concentrates upon existing arms control and disarmament measures, it attempts to widen the range of applicable mechanisms for regulation, and also the nature of the actors involved in such regulatory measures.
Consequently, HAC can be thought of as a framework for analysis to aid the development of a comprehensive, layered and flexible approach to arms control […]
Left unsaid is the central question: what is the core purpose of disarmament (as embedded in the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) and the CWC, two key pillars of the regime against the misuse of incapacitating or riot control agents)? Furthermore, how do treaty regimes evolve in the light of technological, political and social changes over the years since their adoption and entry into force?
Humanitarian considerations have over the past two decades taken up a prominent place in the disarmament and arms control discourses. This means that today a different reference framework for judging effectiveness of a convention exists than the one originally intended: the focus of the public debate has shifted from the weapon technology (which must be eliminated) to the consequences of their use under a variety of circumstances on individuals and communities, which in turn has amplified calls to hold those responsible for violations accountable under national and international criminal law. That conflict of purpose is on clear display in the Syrian civil war: many people do not understand why the international community can invest resources in eliminating Syria’s chemical warfare capacity, but does not want to intervene to stop the slaughter of civilians.
The issue really becomes interesting when two humanitarian considerations intersect at a given decision-making moment in a disarmament setting, and a choice has to be made. Crowley points to such a moment during the 3rd CWC Review Conference in April 2013 (pp. 130–31), however without realising the underlying conflict (of conscience) that led to the item of incapacitating agents being dropped form the final document. The debate occurred when the number of reported chemical weapon (CW) incidents in the Syrian civil war was rising fast, and only a few weeks after the UN Secretary-General established a mission to investigate allegations of CW use. Including a condemnation of the escalating chemical warfare crisis proved highly controversial. Compromise was possible on severely weakened language only, which was totally unacceptable to the Western Group and Other States (WEOG). The final document was in the balance. Given that Poland was chairing the review conference, failure was not an option for the European Union members.
One WEOG ambassador was unable to get updated guidance on compromise language on the questions of incapacitants and Syria from his capital, and therefore had to decide under his personal responsibility (all the while bearing in mind that the successful outcome of the review conference hung in the balance). He opted to go with the compromise language on Syria and (in consultation with the original sponsor, Switzerland) drop references to incapacitants, a key consideration being that the issue could be taken up at a later date. Does such a decision make the CWC less effective? The consensus language in the final document would ultimately form a not insignificant foundation for subsequent action by the OPCW following the sarin attacks in the district of Ghouta less than four months later, and Syria’s accession to the CWC and subsequent disarmament. Outcomes at meetings can result from complex decision processes when different interests conflict with each other and priorities (often in function of developments at the time) need to be established.
So, I raise the question whether the global community is best served by finding ways to ameliorate core instruments or by broadening the range of tools in order to capture a particular issue of interest? I have no immediate answer because, as the book describes, science and technology and their application in various circumstances may evolve much faster than the international community can regulate them or update existing treaty regimes. Nevertheless, I do have the concern that multiplication of treaties and other regulatory instruments lead to different lists of states participating in each one of them and different levels of compliance and enforceability. That could lead to a cacophony of expectations based on different requirements and interpretations of obligations.
This final reflection is not a criticism of Chemical Control. The question touches upon theories of regime formation and international law and goes beyond the purpose of Michael Crowley’s book. However, it is a matter I definitely wish to engage him on. I can only commend him for offering a solid framework for structuring that particular debate on the future of disarmament and arms control and identifying the fundamental assumptions underlying both concepts.
[Cross-posted from The Trench]
Posted: October 16, 2015 | Author: JP Zanders | Filed under: Chemical | Tags: Chlorine, Civil society, Disarmament, International Humanitarian Law, OPCW, War, World War 1 |
Innocence Slaughtered will be published in December 2015
In November 2005 In Flanders Fields Museum organised and hosted an international conference in Ypres, entitled 1915: Innocence Slaughtered. The first major attack with chemical weapons, launched by Imperial German forces from their positions near Langemarck on the northern flank of the Ypres Salient on 22 April 1915, featured prominently among the presentations. I was also one of the speakers, but my address focussed on how to prevent a similar event with biological weapons. Indeed, it was one of the strengths of the conference not to remain stuck in a past of—at that time—nine decades earlier, but also to invite reflection on future challenges in other areas of disarmament and arms control. Notwithstanding, the academic gathering had a secondary goal from the outset, namely to collect the papers with historical focus for academic publication.
The eminent Dutch professor and historian Koen Koch chaired the conference. He was also to edit the book with the historical analyses. Born just after the end of the 2nd World War in Europe, he sadly passed away in January 2012. He had earned the greatest respect from his colleagues, so much so that the In Flanders Fields Museum set up the Koen Koch Foundation to support students and trainees who wish to investigate the dramatic events in the Ypres Salient during the four years of the 1st World War. The homage was very apt: Professor Koch had built for himself a considerable reputation as an author of studies on the 1st World War. Most remarkable: The Netherlands had remained neutral during the conflagration, which adds to the value of his insights.
Death, unfortunately, also ends projects. In the summer of 2014, while doing some preliminary research on the history of chemical warfare, I came across the manuscripts of the chapters that make up the bulk of this book. They were in different editorial stages, the clearest indication of how abruptly the publication project had screeched to an end. Reading them I was struck by the quality of the contents, rough as the texts still were. Together, the contributions also displayed a high degree of coherence.
One group of papers reflected on the minutiae of the unfolding catastrophe that the unleashing of chlorine against the Allied positions meant for individual soldiers and civilians. They also vividly described German doubts about the effectiveness of the new weapon, and hence its potential impact on combat operations. These contributions also reflected on the lack of Allied response to the many intelligence pointers that something significant was afoot. In hindsight, we may ponder how the Allied military leaders could have missed so many indicators. Yet, matter-of-fact assessments of gas use by Allied combatants recur in several chapters, suggesting either widespread anticipation of the introduction of toxic chemicals as a method of warfare or some degree of specific forewarning of the German assault. Gaps in the historical record, however, do not allow a more precise determination of Allied anticipation of chemical warfare. Still, a general foreboding may differ significantly from its concrete manifestation. From the perspective of a contemporary, the question was more likely one of how to imagine the unimaginable. Throughout the 2nd Battle of Ypres senior Allied commanders proved particularly unimaginative. In the end, the fact that German military leaders had only defined tactical goals for the combat operations following up on the release of chlorine, meant that they had forfeited any strategic ambition—such as restoring movement to a stalemated front, seizing the Channel ports, or capturing the vital communications node that Ypres was—during the 2nd Battle of Ypres, or ever after. The surprise element was never to be repeated again. Not during the 1st World War, not in any more recent armed conflict.
The second group of papers captured the massive transformation societies were undergoing as a consequence of industrialisation, science and technology, and the impact these trends were to have on the emergence of what we know today as ‘total war’. Chemical warfare pitted the brightest minds from the various belligerents against each other. The competition became possible because the interrelationship between scientists, industry, politicians and the military establishment was already changing fast. But chemical warfare also helped to effectuate and institutionalise those changes. In many respects, it presaged the Manhattan Project in which the various constituencies were brought together with the sole purpose of developing a new type of weapon. In other ways the competition revealed early thinking about racial superiority that was to define the decades after the Armistice. The ability to survive in a chemically contaminated environment was proof of a higher level of achievement. In other words, chemical defence equalled survival of the fittest. Or how Darwin’s evolutionary theory was deliberately misused in the efforts to justify violation of then existing norms against the used of poison weapons or asphyxiating gases.
During and in the immediate aftermath of the war, opposition to chemical warfare was slow to emerge. In part, this was the consequence of the appreciation by soldiers in the trenches and non-combatants living and working near the frontlines that gas was one among many nuisances and dangers they daily faced as its use became more regular. Defences, advanced training and strict gas discipline gave soldiers more than a fair chance of surviving a gas attack. The violence of total war swept away the humanitarian sentiments that had given rise to the first international treaties banning the use of poison and asphyxiating gases in the final year of the 19th century. Those documents became obsolete because people viewed modern gas warfare as quite distinct from primitive use of poison and poisoned weapons or the scope of the prohibition had been too narrowly defined. By February 1918 chemical warfare had become so regular that a most unusual public appeal on humanitarian grounds by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) badly backfired on the organisation. Throughout the 1920s the choice between an outright ban on chemical weapons and preparing populations for the consequences of future chemical warfare would prove divisive for the ICRC. In contrast, peace and anti-war movements in Europe campaigned against war in all its aspects and consequently refused to resist one particular mode of warfare before the Armistice. It is instructive to learn that opposition to chemical warfare specifically first arose far away from the battlefields—northern America and neutral Netherlands—and among a group of citizens not directly involved in combat operations: women. And perhaps more precisely, women of science who protested the misapplication of their research and endeavours to destroy humans. Just like the chlorine cloud of 22 April 1915 foreshadowed the Manhattan project, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom presaged the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, who would bring together scientists, academics and political leaders to counter the growing menace of nuclear war and find solutions to other threats to peace and security.
It was clear to me that I should not remain a privileged reader of the manuscripts. They contained too much material and insights that the broader public should have access to. Piet Chielens, curator of the In Flanders Fields Museum, and Dominiek Dendooven, researcher at the Museum, could not agree more, and so a new publication project was born. However, since the centenary of the chlorine attack was only a few months away, reviving the academic product Koen Koch had been working on was initially not an option. So, the decision was to exploit modern communication technologies and produce the volume as a PDF file in first instance. However, by the time the electronic edition was ready for online publication, In Flanders Fields Museum had found a publisher willing and able to produce a formal edited volume before the end of the centenary year of the first modern gas attack. My gratitude goes to Ryan Gearing of Uniform Press for his guidance and concrete assistance in making this book a reality.
Time for preparing this publication was very short. To my pleasant surprise, every author in this volume responded favourably and collaboration over several intense weeks—both in the preparation of the original PDF version and the subsequent book project—proved remarkably gratifying and productive. Some contributors even took the time to introduce me to certain concepts widely accepted among historians, which I, with my background in linguistics and political science, had interpreted rather differently. For the experience in preparing this volume, I indeed wish to thank every single contributor.
22 April 1915 was not just the day when the chlorine cloud rolled over the battlefield in Flanders. It also symbolises the confluence of often decade-old trends in science, technology, industry, military art and the way of war, and social organisation. That day augured our modern societies with their many social, scientific and technological achievements. However, it was also a starting point for new trends that eventually led nations down the path of the atomic bomb and industrialised genocide in concentration camps. It also highlighted the perennial struggle of international law and institutions to match rapid scientific and technological advances that could lead to new weapons or modes of warfare. This volume captures the three dimensions: the immediate impact of poison warfare on the battlefield, the ways in which the events in the spring of 1915 and afterwards shaped social attitudes to the scientification and industrialisation of warfare, and the difficulties of capturing chemical and industrial advances in internationally binding legal instruments. Indeed, there can be no more poignant reminder that our insights into the trends that brought the chlorine release 100 years ago are crucial to our understanding of trends shaping our societies today and tomorrow.
Yes, the world has moved on since the 1st World War, even if the use of chlorine in the Syrian civil war one century later may seem to challenge the thought. Yet, one institution may unwittingly have come to symbolise the progression. Fritz Haber, the scientific and organisational genius who led Imperial Germany’s chemical warfare effort in 1915, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1918. Typical for the day, the Nobel Committee detached scientific achievement from moral considerations. His contribution to the development of a synthetic fertiliser for agricultural use, for which he got the prize, equally enabled Germany to continue munition production in the face of an Allied blockade denying it access to foreign raw materials. Haber’s part in chemical warfare too fell entirely outside the Nobel Committee’s considerations. Ninety-five years later, in 2013, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons received the Nobel Peace Prize for its progress in eliminating the scourge of chemical warfare. The decision represented a strong moral statement, for it reflected the (Norwegian) Nobel Committee’s views that today chemistry, and science in general, should serve peaceful purposes. Therefore it is indeed painfully paradoxical that the successful elimination of the most toxic substances developed and produced for warfare has resulted in the return of chlorine, today a common industrial chemical, as a weapon of choice in the Syrian civil war that started in 2011.
We indeed still experience the consequences of 22 April 1915: this dichotomy between the application of science and technology for life and their mobilisation for war continue to characterise our societal development today. This realisation explains why I thought that the papers, initially prepared under the guidance of Professor Koen Koch, should see the light of day. Particularly now.
Jean Pascal Zanders
Ferney-Voltaire, October 2015
Posted: June 17, 2015 | Author: JP Zanders | Filed under: Biological, Chemical, Nuclear | Tags: 1925 Geneva Protocol, BTWC, CWC, Disarmament, History, International Humanitarian Law, Negotiation |
[Cross-posted from The Trench.]
Today, 17 June, the Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare celebrates its 90th anniversary. Short as the document is, it laid the foundations for the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) and the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). How critical that document was to disarmament—the total elimination of a given weapon category—the global community can only appreciate through the growing frustration with the lack of progress in the elimination of nuclear weapons. As the negotiators of the Geneva Protocol came to understand in 1925, without a global ban on use, no other weapon-related activities could legally be curtailed.
This three-part analysis retraces the origins of the Geneva Protocol and identifies its implications for disarmament.
Part 1 focusses on the discovery of the dual-use dilemma posed by toxic chemicals and the conclusions the negotiators drew from their new insights.
Part 2 analyses how the negotiators resolved the dual-use dilemma in meetings preparing the disarmament conference of the 1930s, and in the process came up with solutions that make up the pillars of disarmament today.
Part 3 reflects on how the Geneva Protocol experience may point to a tangible nuclear disarmament strategy in view of the failure of the 2015 review conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the difficulties in reaching a satisfactory agreement with Iran to shed more transparency on its nuclear activities.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: May 14, 2015 | Author: Marco Roscini | Filed under: Nuclear | Tags: Article VI NPT, Disarmament, International Court of Justice, Marshall Islands, NPT, NPT 2015, nuclear weapons |
An ASIL Insight I wrote on the case brought by Marshall Islands against the nuclear weapons states before the International Court of Justice has just been published online (to read it, click here). Comments are welcome.
Posted: April 10, 2015 | Author: JP Zanders | Filed under: Biological | Tags: BTWC, Compliance, Disarmament, Verification |
By Gunnar Jeremias
[Presentation at the civil society event commemorating the 40th anniversary of the entry into force of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, 30 March 2015 – Cross-posted from The Trench.]
Distinguished representatives, colleagues, let me first stress that I am very honoured to be invited to contribute to this event. May I thank the organisers and sponsors very much,
In the next 15 minutes I would like to draw a picture of possible developments of confidence building in the BWC. To that end I will briefly introduce the term confidence and its sources, and will then mainly concentrate on transparency as one of these sources. Finally I am going to consider the possible involvement of new actors and mechanisms in confidence building.
Confidence is a term that is used throughout from the level of private arrangements, via societal and economic contexts (contracts), but of course also in the field of international relations. The main function of agreements is, besides the ‘technical’ overcoming of specified problems, the fostering of mutual trust in compliance with treaty obligations. Obviously there is a central role of information, but neither will it be possible to access all relevant information, nor is the judgement of such information—the decision if it is sufficient to build confidence—a scientific exercise. This is even more evident, since many parties will have different understandings of compliance. Accordingly confidence can hardly be measured in a binary system, but will rather be perceived as gradually changing when trust in compliant behaviour is growing or decreasing.
Trying to get an idea about confidence in the BWC regime one would basically have to measure that level in every single member state. On a general level it can be stated that whenever there exists an arrangement, a contract or an international treaty there was obviously a ground level of confidence when it was agreed. On the other hand, the stakeholders must have seen the need for a mutual system to enhance confidence in compliance.
Confidence is, however, not only fostered by knowledge enabling to make qualified guesses on the level of implementation of the prohibitive obligations, but also by factors that have no direct link with the technical requirements of arms control. Among these factors are the perception of parties as being subject to a just treatment and the perception that those parties with the greatest BW-relevant capacities are really committed to the treaty obligations.
If the success of a treaty is an indicator for the level of confidence, we might face a satisfactory level of confidence in the BWC. There were offensive BW programmes before the BWC came into force; and we have then seen offensive programmes while it was in force, among them a very large one. But now we have since 25 years not witnessed a BW programme (the ricin-programme in the non-BWC member Syria can be discussed as a case, however).
That BW programmes were seldom developed after the coming into force of the BWC might rather be a result of the limited military value of BW (still we don’t know much about the scenarios in which the Soviet bio weapons could have been used). Today there are reasons to believe that there are no offensive programmes anywhere in the world. It is certainly worth learning about military defence programmes, but it is also true that few states have the means or the interest to run critical programs. Hence, biological arms control is today, as far as we know, preventive arms control. However, the idea that there are no BW programmes is based on the unorganised information gathering we have to rely on.
With the possible absence of illicit military activities, confidence building does in many cases concentrate on civil academic or commercial activities with dual-use potential and will try to identify growing misuse potentials and qualified questions about applications and actors (this touches the debate about dual-use research of concern (DURC) that others have touched upon in more detail earlier today).
The widespread dual-use phenomenon and the involvement of many civil facilities is a characteristic of biological arms control, which is probably more distinctive here than in any other arms control field. At least since a number of years, if not back to the early 1970s, the potential for misuse of civil technology and civil research is in the focus, even if the buzzwords biosafety and biosecurity popped up only in the recent years. The trend that the direction of technology diffusion is nowadays rather from civil innovation systems to the military sphere has been known in the bio field for many years.
Besides the fast development of the ground laying technology, it’s methods and scientific capabilities, the spread of capacities to ever more states is a major change to the early 1970s. Back then only in relatively few states in northern America, Western and Eastern Europe and in the USSR relevant capacities in biotechnology were present. Today biotechnology with its imminent and widely spread dual-use potential is a global multi-billion dollar business, still fast growing in many places – and still not developed in many others. This spread might be reason for concerns from an arms control perspective, but the amalgamation with economic interests can also not be rationalised away.
With a much smaller geographical spread of biotechnology and with the block confrontation of the Cold War one of the obligations of the BWC was possibly less central than it appears today: the obligation for technical cooperation under article X. However, there can’t be confidence without the perception of a just treatment of all members as partners with equal chances in the indigenous development of one of the most important industries of our time. For the development of confidence on this provision information plays again a central role, although the questions raised in this context differ from those concerning articles I and III. But here as well transparency is quintessential in helping to base the debate on empirical data.
That there is a problem with transparency in the BWC on different levels is not a secret, really. Given that transparency is main source for confidence (for both the prohibitive and obligatory provisions of the treaty) the look on confidence mainly deals with the question of how to enhance transparency.
Types and sources of transparency
One can think of transparency in different types and as being fed by different sources.
Types of transparency can be defined by its different ranges, namely greater or smaller groups of actors that have access to the information in a transparency system. Starting with the greatest possible extent, public transparency reaches the public as a whole, while in inter-state transparency systems only the parties of a treaty are provided with information. The CBM mechanism is an example for such a practice (although some states make their CBMs transparent for the public sphere). I don’t want to talk much about CBMs. We all know that the number of states participating in this mechanism is not satisfactory. I hope, however, that during this talk it will become clear why they should play a central role in the BWC’s future. A third type of transparency besides the public and inter-governmental transparency, is the exclusive access to information by just one actor (typically a state) when a phenomenon is being made transparent by (and only for) that single actor.
Since transparency is (or should be) a practical exercise, it is maybe helpful to concentrate on the different technical means that are applied in the three different transparency systems. I propose to differentiate in between national technical means (NTMs), international technical means (ITMs), and public technical means (PTMs).
First, NTMs are technical means under the exclusive ownership of single states, hence also the gathered information is exclusively with that state. Their use leads to the single actor type of transparency.
Second, ITMs (not established in the BWC regime) are those technical means that States Parties allow treaty organisations to use.
Third, PTMs are the technical means that rely on open sources and are used to the end to release the gathered information to the public sphere. Their rage has grown significantly over the past years. The digital revolution allows access to a broad range of information. For example:
- Real time epidemiologic information
- Information on biotechnological capacities, products, and research projects
- Free (including commercial) satellite images – here is also a link to the reconnaissance revolution in the last 20 years
- Patent databases
- Trade data (dual-use goods and biotech end-products)
- Scientific publications (PubMed and other databases)
- Digital meta information about companies and research facilities
- Exchanges on social media
- … This list can be expanded any further;
- And besides the use of this universe of existing data that can be identified and filtered from Big Data it is also thinkable that innovative ways to measure environmental data with newly developed technology can contribute to transparency.
The use of these PTMs produces no proof, but will enable actors to ask qualified questions.
Just three examples for questions that occured when working on our current project on the identification of compliance relevant parameters that can be accessed via open sources:
- Why are the security perimeters of a certain facility with known dual-use character being modernised (information accessed by google.earth images)?
- Why do we see certain relevant research activities at institutes that are linked to the military information accessed by PubMed or turn up in google and twitter?
- How can the consumption of unusual amounts of biological growth media in a county be explained (information accessed via UN COMTRADE database)?
It is hence no verification, but it is much more than what is actually being done in the regime.
In an ideal world the mentioned information sources would be accesses at the widest possible extent as ITMs to contribute to a verification mechanism. In the BWC, however, we had to realise that ITMs will not be implemented in the foreseeable future. Since confidence building by enhancing transparency is quintessential for the function of the regime other actors will have to play the role that in other cases is allocated to International Organisations.
I would like to briefly come back to a more theoretical reasoning of transparency to answer the question which actors could/should do so. Transparency can also be described by looking at the direction of the distribution of information: Information can be provided actively by states or biotech stakeholders, or they can be extracted out of the (mostly) electronic/digital universe of information. This can be called passive transparency.
Active transparency
As parties, states would be at the forefront of stakeholders who would be asked to actively provide information to enhance confidence. In the BWC the related mechanism are the CBMs. But also other actors can contribute to active transparency building. For a look into the future it might be helpful to look into the roots of the regime: Already back in 1964 the Pugwash CBW-group had initiated a voluntary inspection mechanism. Participating were commercial and academic facilities from eastern and western European facilities (indeed only one larger non-western biotech production facility in Yugoslavia was involved). The project was later continued by the then newly founded Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). The aim of the overall project was to prove that on-site verification is possible without endangering commercial secrets. A lesson that was learned but seems to have been forgotten is that commercial actors could get involved in active transparency building, also on a voluntary base.
Passive transparency
The passive extraction of relevant information is also not a new idea—neither in other contexts nor in the BWC. When the BWC was negotiated in the early 1970s the just mentioned SIPRI was also innovative in the development of passive transparency tools, and demonstrated the value of Open Source information already back then. By the application of innovative investigative tools the SIPRI researchers already showed that even non-governmental actors could gather relevant information. In 1971 the mechanism was meant as proof that these methods could contribute to a then debated verification mechanism.
And indeed, when it came to the question which would be the best confidence building mechanism, the development of a formal verification mechanism based on on-site inspections was for many years seen as the silver bullet—possibly, it still is. But there is obviously the need to identify alternatives.
In this context it has to be stated that 40 years after SIPRI’s engagement the possibilities to enhance passive transparency by the use of the above mentioned open source information has grown exponentially. Some states may have the capacities to use these information in Open-source intelligence (OSINT) procedures, but many others will not be able to do so on a global scale. This is the reason why often international organisations are installed for information gathering. This is also not to come here (please surprise me at the Review Conference).
Civil society actors should in a best case scenario be a corrective and/or undertake parallel independent control activities. NGOs could be watchdogs, but not the only actors in the production of transparency. However, there are also cases as in the landmines and cluster munition regimes where in the absence of a formal verification system civil society actors do what has been called “Quasi verification” by a number of States Parties. In biological arms control they might also be able (or be enabled) to play a more central role, as long as no information system becomes institutionalised.
The current development of capacities in applying PTMs in passive transparency building might be a “technical” environment that fosters new formats and civil society monitoring networks. With the idea that relevant information will be recognised in a regime regardless by what type of actor it was gathered, NGOs could play a greater role in confidence building in biological arms control.
However, this also means that states should do as much as they can to proof their commitment with the treaty provisions. And that means first of all, better participation in the CBM mechanism. May I add that I don’t think that any state would lose anything if its CBM submission is being made public.
If every actor—state, private, and civil society—improves confidence by enhancing transparency through the use of the specific means at its disposal and therewith contributes to an open, evidence-based debate about compliance relevant factors, I am optimistic that biological arms control will remain successfully based on the BWC for at least another 40 years.
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