The CBW Protection Symposium: 18 years in the service for peace
A revue of the past, today and the future
Kurt Persson
Based on a draft by Johan Santesson 1998

          This seventh symposium on protection against chemical and biological warfare agents in Stockholm 15-19 June 2001 will, together with the six previous symposia, illuminate how the interests in the different fields of CBW protection have varied during the last two decades. The years since the first symposium in 1983 have been years with dramatic political developments, including the Iraqi large-scale use of chemical weapons against Iran, the breakdown of the Soviet Union and the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact (WP), and the coming into force of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). Naturally, all of these events have been reflected at the symposia.
          Symposium I through IV dealt with C protection but starting with Symposium V in 1995, B protection has been included in each program.
          The number of participants has more than doubled from the first symposium (322 delegates) to the sixth (730) and so has the number of presented papers (from 43 to 99). In fact the increase in papers accepted for presentation has been considerably greater than that. In the beginning it was difficult to get scientific papers in a number sufficient to fill the program and many commercially oriented presentations were thus accepted. But as the reputation of the symposia has steadily increased, there has been no lack of scientific contributions. In this as well as several previous symposia, many papers have had to be directed to the poster sessions.
          At this seventh symposium there will be parallel sessions except for the opening and closing sessions. This will give as many authors as possible the opportunity to present their papers orally. 116 papers are scheduled to be presented in 28 different sessions. About the same number of papers will be presented in each of two poster sessions. In addition, a keynote speaker will start the program each day. This year the symposium will be opened by the Minister of Defence, Mr Bj–rn von Sydow.

Subject Fields
          The distributions of the different subjects have varied over time. At the first symposium, detection represented one third of the presentations, but at the third and fourth symposia it represented one fifth of the papers. Today detection has again increased to 25 %, probably as a result of the increased interest in B-detection. The second largest field has been medical protection, which has steadily been on a level of about 20 %.
          Other fields have also varied. Filters and filtration, and respiratory protection started below 10 % and reached 20 % in 1989. Possibly the increase reflected the intensive development of new respiratory masks. Now the share is again below 10 %. The trend for lectures concerning body protection is similar; starting below 10 % in 1983 to a maximum of 20% in 1992 and then in 2001 to less than 10 %.
          The decontamination and destruction fields started modestly in 1983 at 7 % (3 papers) and the papers dealt only with decontamination. At the third symposium the proportion passed 10 % and included the first lecture on destruction of chemical warfare agents. In 1998 decontamination and destruction (or demilitarisation) represented one fourth of the papers presented in different sessions. For this seventh symposium fewer than 10 % deal with any aspects of demilitarization. In the beginning the papers almost exclusively were devoted to pure technical subjects but at the fifth symposium an apparent change occurred. Threat analysis, later renamed present and future CBW protection, and low level threats are fields that have been added. Concurrent with new types of emerging threats, this reflects the need of a more integrated view on C and B protection.
          What can we expect from coming symposia? Low level threats will probably attract more interest and especially aspects of protection against terrorist use of chemical and biological weapons. Papers on verification have been presented in a separate session since 1995. In addition to the number of papers generated by CWC requirements, the numbers of verification papers will probably rise if and when the BTWC comes into force.
          As more delegates come from developing countries, other changes in interests are likely. Protection against pollution by toxic industry chemicals, as a consequence of military activities, has for a long time been of interest to the western world. However, it has hitherto only received limited attention at the CBW symposia. We are now noticing a change and several papers in this area will be presented at this symposium.
          The exhibition of chemical and biological defence equipment has always been a popular part of the symposia. It has grown steadily over the years. In the first symposium 1983, 42 companies exhibited their products. For the seventh symposium more than 80 companies will participate in the exhibition, representing 14 countries in Europe, America, Asia and Australia.

Represented nations
          The number of represented nations has increased enormously over the years. People from 20 countries attended the first symposium. At the third symposium the number had risen to 31 and at the sixth the number had been more than doubled. Participants from 48 countries have so far been registered for the 7th symposium. It is true that the figures cannot be compared fully, since many new states has been formed, inter alia through the disintegration of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.
          From where do the delegates come? At the first symposia there were primarily only delegates from western countries, i.e. the regional group of states which, in connection with the CWC, used to be called WEOG (Western European and Other States Group). Sixteen of the twenty represented states belonged to this group and this number has been practically constant at all the following symposia.
          When the first symposium was given, the cold war was still on. In order not to intimidate NATO delegates, none from the WP countries were invited. But representatives from the WP were welcomed at the following symposia in 1986, and the number of represented (former) WP states has since then grown to seven.
           The most remarkable growth has been from Asian countries. If Israel is excluded from this category, only one country (Thailand) was represented at the first symposium. (CBW - from p. 20) By the fifth symposium the number had risen to nine and now twelve Asian countries will be represented.
          What about the future? The CWC and the discussions on BTWC have made many developing countries more aware of the significance of good knowledge concerning protection against chemical and biological weapons. Additionally, the destruction of C weapon arsenals is now occuring but completion will take long time. There is every reason to presume that because of the increased awareness, we will see additional nations represented at future symposia.

01-3, issue no. 84