International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation

Bulletin 19 - Bioterror and Bioweapons Control

Civil Society and the Biological Weapons Convention

Creating Transparency Under Duress

Oliver Meier

Recent attempts to create a verification mechanism for the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) have failed. Whether diplomatic talks on a legally binding and universal monitoring mechanism will continue, depends on the outcome of the resumed session of the Fifth BWC Review Conference, which will take place in Geneva from 11 - 22 November 2002. From a verification point of view, the best possible outcome of that meeting would be a decision to restart negotiations on a verification mechanism, with a view to early conclusions of such talks. But even under such an optimistic scenario, it would take several years before negotiations on a verification mechanism for the BWC are concluded and a Protocol enters into force. Meanwhile, secrecy will continue to surround discussions about violations of the bioweapons ban. Because of the lack of verification, proliferators do not have to fear exposure through the international community. Allegations and suspicion of non-compliance will not be independently verifiable. This deficit of openness and transparency threatens to undermine the long-standing taboo against biological weapons.

What role then can civil society play in monitoring compliance with the BWC? Can non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other non-governmental actors fill the transparency gap? In other areas of arms control - especially landmines - civil society has been able to some extent to successfully break the governmental habit of classifying all information related to national security.^[1] But in the bioweapons case this is much harder to achieve. Violations of the ban on biological weapons are inherently difficult to detect. The dual-use nature of biotechnology makes it necessary to monitor facilities involved in legitimate activities. Relevant activities are mostly taking place behind closed doors. Research involving agents that can be used to develop biological weapons is undertaken in biotech companies, university laboratories or military biodefense facilities. Much of this work is removed from public scrutiny because companies are afraid of industrial espionage and governments fear the loss of sensitive national security information.

This secrecy is at odds with a general tendency towards more openness in many areas of politics generally and international politics specifically.^[2] The trend towards more transparency is fuelled by technical capabilities as well as political and economic necessities in the age of globalisation. Civil society actors, especially NGOs, are one driving force behind the expansion of transparency.^[3]

But how can the misuse of biotechnology be detected and deterred by groups and individuals that have little or no access to relevant activities? This article is inspired by the kind of monitoring activities undertaken by NGOs in other areas of arms control. It gives some examples of the kinds of activities that can increase transparency in areas relevant to the general prohibitions enshrined in the BWC. It looks first at the range of possible monitoring activities, ranging from the "soft" and indirect such as increasing awareness, to the "hard" and difficult such as detecting clandestine activities. It concludes with some thoughts about sensible next steps to increase transparency.

Increasing awareness

Like verification, transparency works best when participants are cooperating and releasing information voluntarily. Ideally, they are motivated by their enlightened self-interest to make cooperation work. From this perspective, civil society has a crucial role in distributing information about the dangers of biological weapons and the usefulness of transparency. Important recipients of such information are those involved in biological research and those affected by the results of such research.

This concerns, first, the public in general. Increasing awareness should aim to create a political climate conducive to openness. Only if transparency is the norm will scientists and others be encouraged to be open about their work. A negative example in this regard is the involvement of hundreds of scientists in the clandestine biological weapons programme in the former Soviet Union. In the closed political system of the USSR, little information about the large programme, which involved many sectors of society, leaked to the outside world. Facts about the large-scale violation of the BWC only began to emerge after the Soviet Union had begun to open up under "Perestroika".^[4]

By contrast, a recent striking example of self-control took place in the open and pluralistic political system of Australia. In 2000, researchers in Canberra accidentally created a lethal mouse virus, which demonstrated the possibility of making a potent bioweapon. This finding created a dilemma for the scientists: keeping the data secret would have opened them up to suspicions of working on bioweapon agents. By releasing the data, they increased the likelihood of somebody misusing their work for hostile purposes. After consulting with the Australian Department of Defence, the team chose transparency over secrecy and published the results of their work in the Journal of Virology.^[5]

Raising awareness in the general public about transparency in relevant bioweapons research is also crucial to creating and maintaining the political pressure on governments to be more open themselves. Bureaucracies are inherently reluctant to release information, and regulations increasing public access to sensitive data are often only the result of intense public pressure.

With regard to bioweapons, NGOs have two more specific roles. First, NGOs can help to make specialist knowledge accessible to a more generalist audience, including the media. Leading examples here include the Educational Module on Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonp-roliferation of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and the site of the Project on Strengthening the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention at the Department of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford, UK.^[6]

In addition, grassroots organisations and those that represent professional groups can educate their members about bioweapons. This becomes especially urgent for those organisations whose members potentially deal with bioweapons-relevant issues, such as microbiologists and medical doctors. Scientists' networks like the International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation (INESAP) and the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) can inform their members about potential misuse of their work. Associations of the medical profession can raise awareness among doctors, which would be in most cases the first to be confronted with the consequences of the use of bioweapons.^[7]

Such efforts may have another positive side effect: historically, scientists and scientists' organisations like the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs have been key in establishing the norms of openness and transparency that paved the way for the BWC. For example, in the 1960s, microbiologists in Austria, Czechoslovakia, Denmark and Sweden launched an inter-laboratory project aimed at increasing openness at research facilities in the four countries. This and similar initiatives have helped to strengthen the norm of transparency in bioweapons research.^[8] Given the current crisis of multilateral disarmament diplomacy, similar efforts are much needed to keep the idea of verification and transparency alive.

Finally, civil society can directly interact with political decision-makers in order to raise the profile of bioweapons issues which range low on the agenda of most foreign ministries.^[9] Without public pressure, this is unlikely to change. Non-governmental actors and organisations can engage in a range of activities from letter writing to attending diplomatic conferences and meetings to voice their concerns.^[10]

Monitoring civil research and biodefensive work

A more direct way of increasing transparency is the monitoring of relevant research and development activities by civil society. Research associated with potential bioweapon agents takes place primarily in private and university laboratories as well as governmental biodefense facilities.

Biotech businesses are more secretive than other sectors of commerce. The main reason lies in the nature of biomedical research. The loss of commercial proprietary information can negate commercial benefits from years of research and development efforts and would thus mean the loss of substantial investments. Usually, even general information about research is kept secret until a finished product is licensed, patented and sold on the market.

But civil research activities are not completely removed from public scrutiny. Most biomedical research is already subject to strict safety checks by national authorities. In addition, civil society actors keep an eye on research on genetically modified organisms. Many of these monitoring activities are rather indirect and rely much on open source information. By themselves, they would probably not be capable of identifying small-scale bioweapons programmes. But such activities can help to develop a "baseline" of knowledge against which to check information from other sources.^[11]

Biodefense activities also largely take place in secret. Governments fear that a leak of confidential information, for example about the vulnerability of protective measures against certain agents, could be exploited by aggressors. As a consequence, bureaucracies are overprotective and do not even release the kind of general information about the scope and general direction of defensive work that is required under confidence-building and verification measures.^[12]

In open societies, persistent and knowledgeable NGOs can research information about defensive programmes despite the secrecy surrounding such institutions. Using open sources and putting questions to officials both privately and publicly can create some transparency. This was demonstrated by studies like the one published by the Sunshine Project on the scope of German biodefense efforts.^[13]

Because of the confidentiality involved, describing biodefense activities is often reliant on investigative methods and/or informants. The most recent example is the revelation of three clandestine US biodefensive programmes by the New York Times on 4 September 2001.^[14]

These programmes - though not offensive by intent - violate the Convention because they mimic all the components of an offensive programme.

Highlighting and clarifying areas of concern

The BWC does not list specific items to be controlled but prohibits all activities that have no justification for peaceful, protective or prophylactic purposes. While this so-called general purpose criterion is broad enough to cover all relevant activities, it also creates a grey area that can be exploited by those who want to test the limit of the ban on bioweapons. Civil society plays a crucial role in helping governments to uphold the spirit and the letter of the BWC. NGOs do this by drawing attention to attempts to undermine the ban on such weapons. Examples include the work of the Sunshine Project in highlighting developments that risk undermining the BWC prohibitions related to law enforcement, anti-materiel microbes, and crop eradication agents.^[15]

When suspicions of non-compliance exist, NGOs are relatively free of political restrictions when investigating such cases. If the circumstances are right, they can even contribute to the clarification of such concerns. Examples include the mission of a group of medical experts which in 1998 initiated an on-site investigation of the Iraqi chemical (and possibly biological) weapons attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja that had taken place 10 years earlier.^[16]

The difficulties of such missions are demonstrated by the involvement of non-governmental experts in investigating the source of the 1979 anthrax outbreak in the Soviet city of Sverdlovsk. In 1986, a group of highly regarded US experts were invited to Moscow to discuss the outbreak that was suspected to have been related to clandestine bioweapons activities. After the visit and a return visit by two Soviet physicians to the US in 1988, the US scientists concluded that the Soviet explanation - that contaminated meat was the cause - was plausible, but they demanded more information. Only after two visits to Sverdlovsk in June 1992 and August 1993 were the US scientists able to conclude definitively that the outbreak was linked to a Soviet bioweapons facility.^[17]

When investigating compliance concerns, non-governmental experts increasingly rely on a range of modern technical means. The information revolution is key in this regard, because it enables actors across the world to communicate in near real time and - important for NGOs - at low cost. In the context of disease surveillance, this has led to the development of several Internet or email-based monitoring networks. These rely on open sources and/or reports from global networks of experts in different locations. Because the use of biological weapons is equivalent to the deliberate use of disease, these networks, as an unintended side-effect, have a high likelihood of picking up instances of use of biological weapons or accidental release of bioweapon agents.^[18]

The power of open source analysis was demonstrated recently in the context of anthrax incidents in the US. At the time of the writing of this article, the exact source of the anthrax attacks was not publicly known. But it was not a government agency that came up with the most likely explanation for the source of the attack, but an independent scientist. Barbara H. Rosenberg, chair of the Biological Weapons Working Group of the Federation of American Scientist, first publicly argued that the perpetrator was likely to be a US citizen and probably was or is associated with past US offensive bioweapons research or current biodefence efforts. This thesis was first aired by SIPRI via its bioweapons listserv and then picked up by the international media.^[19]

Detecting violations of the BWC

Independent investigation and uncovering violations of the BWC is the hardest test for civil society monitoring efforts. Any government or non-governmental entity involved in such programmes would use all means to conceal them. In the early stages of a bioweapons programme, when the focus is on research and development, such denial and deception efforts are most likely to be successful. As long as only a few scientists are involved and the research takes place on a laboratory scale, access to information about a clandestine project can be tightly controlled.

This picture, however, changes as bioweapon programmes advance and aim for a military significant capability. Production facilities and filling stations for munitions are far more difficult to hide than small-scale R&D activities. Such facilities might have characteristics that can be picked up by remote sensors such as satellites. Historically, all known bioweapons programmes have also involved some degree of open air testing of agents. Successful dispersal of agents is difficult and a new proliferator would want to be especially certain about the effectiveness of means of deployment. Test sites, however, can also be detected either by satellites or other remote sensors.

Clandestine bioweapons programmes also have to shield themselves against the possibility that somebody involved "blows the whistle". Such whistleblowers have played decisive roles in uncovering the two large clandestine offensive bioweapons programmes, in the former Soviet Union and in Iraq.

Non-governmental expertise also has been useful in describing other offensive biological weapons programmes. For example Iraq's efforts to develop biological weapons are monitored by a number of independent experts, using open sources and other kinds of information. While these efforts - because of the lack of onsite access - are unable to directly prove violations, they can make informed judgements about some relevant developments.^[20] Such information will also be useful to focus efforts if and when verification through the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission resumes.^[21]

What needs to be done

Civil society monitoring efforts are hampered by a number of inherent limitations. Thus, NGOs can most easily monitor states that are most transparent and accordingly less likely to violate international obligations. Civil society monitoring can be inconsistent, unreliable or biased. NGO monitoring efforts are also affected by lack of access to official information.^[22]

These difficulties are even more pronounced with regard to bioweapons monitoring. There is currently no truly international network of NGOs dedicated to watching out for violations of the ban on biological weapons. Almost all of the NGOs currently following bioweapons issues are operating from Western countries. Most of these are based in the United States, the United Kingdom or Germany.^[23] As discussed above, the greatest problem affecting NGOs attempting to monitor bioweapons relevant developments is the lack of access to information.

If transparency in bioweapons related research is to be increased, civil society monitoring efforts need to be strengthened. The small group of NGOs currently involved in bioweapon issues need to reach non-Western as well as non-arms control-oriented groups. Existing efforts will also have to be expanded and better coordinated. Wherever possible, NGO monitoring should build on existing capabilities in order to avoid duplication of efforts. Those involved in monitoring compliance should also make use of the experience NGOs have in monitoring compliance with other international agreements. The involvement of NGOs in the implementation of environmental and human rights accords is likely to be especially instructive, because civil society plays a far bigger role in these areas compared with arms control.^[24]

NGOs are also locked out of political decision-making processes related to questions of compliance. The role of civil society here is limited to highlighting non-compliance concerns. NGOs, because they lack access to traditional means of power, have to rely on soft means of persuasion. They can also attempt to "embarrass governments into compliance" by revealing information. Ironically, these tools work best with governments that are the most transparent and least likely to cheat on international commitments. Or in the words of one expert: "Saddam Hussein is unlikely to stay awake nights worrying about what the public or civil society thinks. Transparency merely raises the costs of delinquency; it does not render such behavior impossible."^[25]

Eventually civil society monitoring efforts will therefore have to be complemented by a legally binding verification mechanism as is common practice in other arms control regimes. Such an official mechanism must be able to comprehensively monitor the BWC. A future Organisation for the Prohibition of Biological Weapons will have access to certain confidential information, for example data declared in confidence by private companies and governments. An international organisation charged with implementing such a verification regime is also likely to have a standing and trained inspectorate, on stand-by to investigate non-compliance concerns on short notice. And finally, such a verification regime will include rules for sanctioning non-compliance and seeking redress.

In the long run, it is therefore essential to keep the pressure on governments to close the verification gap and conclude a verification Protocol to the BWC. The last chance to decide on continuing talks on such a Protocol is part two of the Fifth BWC Review Conference. After the successful sabotage of both the AHG and the first part of the Review Conference by the US, it is now the responsibility of the supporters of a strengthened Convention to take matters forward.

NGO efforts to detect and deter violations of the BWC are complementary to government-based initiatives to strengthen the Convention. In order to exploit the synergies between the different approaches to verification, an international verification system should be open to cooperation with civil society. For example, an Organisation for the Prohibition of Biological Weapons should be able to use open source information provided by non-governmental experts and organisations. It should actively reach out to take advantage of the expertise available among scientists, because, as Nicholas Sims notes "(...) the abolition of biological weapons requires a long-sustained effort on many fronts, by governments and scientists in partnership."^[26]

Oliver Meier is Senior Arms Control and Disarmament Researcher at the Verification Research, Training and Information Centre (VERTIC) in London and can be contacted at oliver@vertic.org.

VERTIC is an independent, non-profit, on-governmental organisation. Its mission is to promote effective and efficient verification as a means of ensuring confidence in the implementation of international agreements; www.vertic.org.