Biological Weapons Convention

Biological Weapons Convention
Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction
Participation in the Biological Weapons Convention
Signed10 April 1972
LocationLondon, Moscow, and Washington, D.C.
Effective26 March 1975
ConditionRatification by 22 states, including the three depositaries[1]
Signatories109
Parties189[2] (complete list)
8 non-parties: Chad, Djibouti, Egypt (signatory), Eritrea, Haiti (signatory), Israel, Somalia (signatory), and Syria (signatory).
DepositaryUnited States, United Kingdom, Russian Federation (successor to the Soviet Union)[3]
LanguagesChinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish[4]
Full text
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The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), or Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC), is a disarmament treaty that effectively bans biological and toxin weapons by prohibiting their development, production, acquisition, transfer, stockpiling and use.[5] The treaty's full name is the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction.[5]

Having entered into force on 26 March 1975, the BWC was the first multilateral disarmament treaty to ban the production of an entire category of weapons of mass destruction.[5] The convention is of unlimited duration.[6] As of May 2025, 189 states have become party to the treaty.[7] Four additional states have signed but not ratified the treaty, and another four states have neither signed nor acceded to the treaty.[8]

The BWC is considered to have established a strong global norm against biological weapons.[9] This norm is reflected in the treaty's preamble, which states that the use of biological weapons would be "repugnant to the conscience of mankind".[10] It is also demonstrated by the fact that not a single state today declares to possess or seek biological weapons, or asserts that their use in war is legitimate.[11] In light of the rapid advances in biotechnology, biodefense expert Daniel Gerstein has described the BWC as "the most important arms control treaty of the twenty-first century".[12] However, the convention's effectiveness has been limited due to insufficient institutional support and the absence of any formal verification regime to monitor compliance.[13] The treaty has seen notable violations in offensive biological weapons programs of the Soviet Union,[14][15] and of Ba'athist Iraq.[16][17] Its Article VI mechanism for complaint of a violation has been invoked once, by Russia in 2022, regarding the debunked Ukraine bioweapons conspiracy theory.

  1. ^ Article XIV, Biological Weapons Convention.
  2. ^ "Status of the Biological Weapons Convention". United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs. Retrieved 3 July 2024.
  3. ^ Biological Weapons Convention, Article XIV.
  4. ^ Biological Weapons Convention, Article XV.
  5. ^ a b c "Biological Weapons Convention – UNODA". United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs. Archived from the original on 15 February 2021. Retrieved 15 February 2021.
  6. ^ Article XIII, Biological Weapons Convention. Treaty Database, United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs.
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference :5 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Report on universalization activities, 2019 Meeting of States Parties to the Biological Weapons Convention, BWC/MSP/2019/3. Geneva, 8 October 2019.
  9. ^ Cross, Glenn; Klotz, Lynn (3 July 2020). "Twenty-first century perspectives on the Biological Weapon Convention: Continued relevance or toothless paper tiger". Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. 76 (4): 185–191. Bibcode:2020BuAtS..76d.185C. doi:10.1080/00963402.2020.1778365. ISSN 0096-3402. S2CID 221061960.
  10. ^ Preamble, Biological Weapons Convention. Treaty Database, United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs.
  11. ^ Feakes, D. (August 2017). "The Biological Weapons Convention". Revue Scientifique et Technique (International Office of Epizootics). 36 (2): 621–628. doi:10.20506/rst.36.2.2679. ISSN 0253-1933. PMID 30152458. S2CID 52100050.
  12. ^ Gerstein, Daniel (2013). National Security and arms control in the age of biotechnology: the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 53. ISBN 978-1-4422-2312-7.
  13. ^ Tucker, Jonathan (1 August 2001). "Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) Compliance Protocol". Nuclear Threat Initiative. Archived from the original on 16 February 2021. Retrieved 16 February 2021.
  14. ^ Cite error: The named reference :32 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  15. ^ Cite error: The named reference :33 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  16. ^ Cite error: The named reference :37 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  17. ^ Cite error: The named reference :14 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
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