BTWC Meeting of States Parties
Geneva : 6 – 10 December 2004
by Graham S. Pearson
As reported in ASA Newsletter 04-4 (August 27, 2004), the Meeting of Experts of the States Parties of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) held in Geneva on 19 to 30 July 2004 made significant progress in considering the two topics identified for 2004:
iii. Enhancing international capabilities for responding to, investigating and mitigating the effects of cases of alleged use of biological and toxin weapons or suspicious outbreaks of disease;
iv. Strengthening and broadening national and international institutional efforts and existing mechanisms for the surveillance, detection, diagnosis and combating of infectious diseases affecting humans, animals and plants;
The Meeting of Experts produced a report which contained as Annex II a paper prepared by the Chairman listing the considerations, lessons, perspectives, recommendations, conclusions, and proposals drawn from the presentations, statements, working papers and interventions made by delegations on the topics under discussion at the Meeting. The report stated that ‘The Meeting of Experts noted that it was the Chairman’s view that the paper could assist delegations in their preparations for the Meeting of States Parties in December 2004 and in its consideration of how best to “discuss, and promote common understanding and effective action on” the two topics in accordance with the decision of the Fifth Review Conference.’
This provided the States Parties with an excellent starting point from which to develop language to meet the requirement of the mandate for the Meeting of State Parties in December 2004 to ‘discuss, and promote common understandings and effective action’.
Preparations for the Meeting of States Parties, 2004
The Chairman wrote to the States Parties on 23 September 2004 to encourage the States Parties to focus their preparations for the Meeting of States Parties on the particular mandate for the 2004 meetings and on what the States Parties can agree to do (common understandings and effective action) under the topics under consideration. The Chairman hoped that the list provided in Annex II would be a useful tool to assist delegations in their preparations. It was pointed out that the final version, attached to the report as Annex II, clustered the proposals, etc, so that similar ones appeared together.
A further letter by the Chairman on 29 October 2004 advised that further work had been undertaken on the list in Annex II and that it had been possible to synthesize these proposals, etc., into a much more manageable form, which was attached to the letter. It was underlined that the synthesized version of the document continued to be based on the presentations, statements, working papers and interventions made by delegations, and did not include any new ideas. All that had been done was to remove repetitions and merge similar concepts. The Chairman concluded by pointing out that the very limited duration of one week for the Meeting of States Parties would not provide time for delegations to again make extensive presentations and that attention needed to be directed to specifically addressing the mandate. The synthesis attached to the letter was subsequently issued as BWC/MSP/2004/L.1 dated 1 December 2004 (this and other BWC papers are available at http://www.opbw.org) and translated into all of the UN languages.
Meeting of States Parties, 6 to 10 December 2004
The Meeting of States Parties began on Monday 6 December 2003 in a plenary session when the Chairman, Peter Goosen of South Africa, welcomed the representatives from the States Parties. 89 States Parties participated in the Meeting of States Parties -- two more than in the Meeting of Experts. The Convention now has 153 States Parties and 16 Signatory States (see BWC/MSP/2004/INF.2) as Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan had acceded during the past year.
Four intergovernmental organizations (FAO, ICRC, OIE and WHO) participated as observers as did UNIDIR and 15 NGOs (BWPP, CACNP, CISSM, CNS, CSIS, INES, Landau Network – Centro Volta, Pax Christi, SIPRI, London School of Economics, The Sunshine Project, Tri-Valley CAREs, University of Bradford, University of Exeter, VERTIC). Over 450 individuals from States Parties participated of which just under 170 had come from capitals.\
In his opening remarks, Peter Goosen said that at the Meeting of Experts in July the emphasis had continually been on the mandate to discuss, and promote common understanding and effective action. He hoped that the Chairman’s paper attached as Annex II to the report of the Meeting of Experts and the subsequent synthesis paper, which contained no new ideas, would help this process. He said that he had been pleasantly surprised at the positive response to the synthesis document as it might help to reach concurrence on common understanding and effective action on the topics under consideration. He pointed out that the process being followed between the Fifth and Sixth Review Conferences was one which had been agreed to by all States Parties and that the time for reflection and adjustment would be at the Sixth Review Conference.
He went on to note that the Biological Weapons Convention does not exist in a vacuum. The report (A/59/565) of the UN Secretary-General’s High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change issued on Thursday 2 December 2004 had made recommendations of direct relevance to the Convention and some were even relevant to the mandate for this year. He noted recommendation 27 that the States Parties to the BTWC should without delay return to negotiations for a credible verification protocol, recommendation 34 that the States Parties to the BTWC should negotiate a new biosecurity protocol and recommendation 37 that the Security Council should consult with the WHO Director-General to establish the necessary procedures for working together in the event of a suspicious or overwhelming outbreak of infectious disease. The Chairman noted that these were only recommendations from the Panel, not yet considered, but to be borne in mind as some have direct relevance to the Convention.
Political Statements
The meeting continued with the General Debate in which 28 statements were made by States Parties in sequence: Malaysia on behalf of the NAM, Brazil, Iran, USA, Russian Federation, Japan, Canada, Netherlands on behalf of the EU, Italy, Australia, UK, Argentina, Malaysia, Norway, India, Republic of Korea, China, Algeria, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Morocco, Switzerland, Pakistan, New Zealand, Nigeria, Mexico and Jordan. As at the Meeting of States Parties in 2003, many of the statements made by the States Parties set out the perspective of the State Party in regard to the broader picture of the BTWC regime.
NGO Statements
The opening plenary session agreed that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) could make short statements in informal session at the beginning of the Tuesday 7 December 2004 morning session. Short 6 to 8 minute statements were made by the following on behalf of nine NGOs:
• Graham S. Pearson, Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford.
• Angela Woodward, VERTIC
• Kathryn Nixdorff, International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility (INES)
• Jean Pascal Zanders, BioWeapons Prevention Project
• Paul Lansu, Pax Christi International
• Nicholas A. Sims, London School of Economics
• Barbara Rosenberg & Alan Pearson, Scientists Working Group on CBW, Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation
• Loulena Miles, Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment)
• Richard Guthrie, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
As at the Fourth and Fifth Review Conferences and at the Meeting of Experts, the NGO speakers spoke from seats in the room whilst their statements were distributed to all those present. There were about 200 people present in the room during the NGO statements which with simultaneous translation into the six official UN languages enabled the NGOs to communicate their views to all present.
Outcome of the Meeting of States Parties
At the final public plenary session on the afternoon of Friday 10 December 2003, the States Parties adopted the report of the Meeting of States Parties. This report (BWC/MSP/2004/3) addressed both the procedural aspects and the operative paragraphs of the Meeting of States Parties. Unlike the report of the Meeting of States Parties in 2003 (MSP/2003/4), the outcome is integrated into the report and not attached as a separate Part II. The report of MSP/2004 has three Annexes: Annex I provides a listing of all the official documents of the meeting, Annex II contained the considerations, lessons, perspectives, recommendations, conclusions and proposals drawn from the presentations, statements, working papers and interventions made by delegations on the topics under discussion at the Meeting of Experts (as contained in the Annex II of the Report of the Meeting of Experts (BWC/MSP/2004/MX/3)), and Annex III contained the synthesis of these considerations, lessons, perspectives, recommendations, conclusions and proposals (as contained in BWC/MSP/2004/L.1). As these will be translated into all the UN official languages, it ensures this material is provided to all States Parties in an available form unlike the material in 2003 which was uncollated and available only in English.
One paragraph in the Final Report addresses the arrangements for 2005. This states that the Meeting of States Parties approved the nomination by the Western Group of Ambassador John Freeman of the UK as Chairman of the Meeting of Experts and of the Meeting of States Parties in 2005. Furthermore, it was confirmed that the Meeting of Experts would be held in Geneva from 13 to 24 June 2005 and that the Meeting of the States Parties would be held in Geneva from 5 to 9 December 2005.
The outcome of the Meeting of States Parties in 2004 was considerably more substantive that that of the comparable Meeting in 2003. The structure of the substance setting out the elements that States Parties recognized – the common understandings – and then setting out what the States Parties agreed upon – the effective action – was a significant step forward. In addition, the clear linkage of the outcome in paragraph 22 to the Sixth Review Conference with its call for States Parties to inform that Conference of “any actions, measures or other steps they may have taken” is a valuable linkage which should facilitate the work of the Sixth Review Conference in 2006.
Analysis
The atmosphere at the 2004 Meeting of States Parties was more positive than a year ago. It was particularly noticeable that attention is increasingly being given to the Sixth Review Conference in 2006. There was useful recognition that the Review Conference needs to review the Convention in its entirety and that a Final Declaration that builds upon and extends the understandings agreed at previous Review Conferences is a key outcome to maintain the vitality of the Convention. The outcome of the Meeting of States Parties in 2004 was significantly better than that of the corresponding meeting in 2003. Not only was the substance incorporated into the final report but its structure and content were distinctly better. This augurs well for the Meetings of Experts and of States Parties in 2005 addressing the topic of "the content, promulgation, and adoption of codes of conduct for scientists".
It was also evident that the States Parties at the Meeting of States Parties were aware of – and indeed the Chairman had drawn attention in his opening remarks to – the report of the Secretary-General’s High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change which had been issued on Thursday 2 December 2004; the Thursday prior to MSP/2004. This had made recommendations of direct relevance to the Convention and some were even relevant to the mandate for this year. Recommendation 27 that “States Parties to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention should without delay return to negotiations for a credible verification protocol, inviting the active participation of the biotechnology industry.” was specifically quoted by Norway and alluded to by New Zealand.
Although there is clearly much to be considered before there are any decisions on whether to implement the recommendations, there is little doubt that future statements on behalf of the NAM and by individual NAM States will not miss any opportunity to cite recommendation 27 as being in support of the NAM position for multilateral negotiations of a legally binding instrument to strengthen the Convention. If no remedial action is taken, it seems probable that there could all too easily be a situation at the Sixth Review Conference that is a repeat of that at the Fifth Review Conference with the States Parties other than the NAM Group being portrayed as those that have prevented progress. The requirement is for the EU as a coherent political group or for a grouping of other like minded States Parties to devise a package of measures that will together strengthen the Convention that can attract broad support and, should consensus not be forthcoming, can be taken forward by a coalition of the willing on as wide an international basis as possible or perhaps on a regional basis in one or more regions. This would offer the prospect of a successful outcome to the Sixth Review Conference one way or another – either by consensus or by a coalition of the willing.
Ed. Note: Professor Graham Pearson is the Visiting Professor in International Security, Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom; and the former Director General of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment, Porton Down.
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