On April 10, 1972, the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction, also known as the Biological Weapons Convention (BTWC), was opened for signature.
The document introduced a ban on the development, production, accumulation, acquisition and transfer of biological agents and toxins used in armed conflicts, as well as their means of delivery.
According to experts, the use of biological weapons can endanger the existence of mankind, so the convention continues to play a significant role in ensuring global security.
From protocol to convention
According to historians, attempts to use toxins and pathogens of various diseases for military purposes, presumably, were made as early as the Middle Ages.
The first officially confirmed fact is considered to be the distribution by European colonialists in 1763 among the Indians of North America of blankets infected with the smallpox pathogen.
And during the First World War, German troops tried to deliberately infect horses with glanders.
The attacks of the German army with the use of chemical and bacteriological weapons largely contributed to the fact that on June 17, 1925, 37 states signed the Geneva Protocol on the prohibition of the use of asphyxiating, poisonous or other similar gases and bacteriological agents in war.
The document emphasized that the use of such tools "was rightly condemned by the public opinion of the civilized world."
However, a number of countries that signed the Geneva Protocol did not ratify it in the future.
This applies in particular to the US and Japan.
The United States in 1941 began research related to the manufacture of biological weapons.
During the Second World War, Japanese troops used such weapons against Chinese military personnel and civilians, and also tested them on captured Soviet citizens and planned to use them against the Red Army.
As historian and legal scholar Vadim Yegorov noted in an interview with RT, the facts of the use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) during the Second World War, including biological experiments by the Japanese on living people, became a catalyst for discussing measures to limit the development of WMD at the international level.
“The world community has a desire to join forces to prevent the spread of biological weapons,” the expert said.
E120 canister (sectional view) loaded with a cluster warhead biological warhead
© Wikimedia
On December 16, 1971, the UN General Assembly approved the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction.
On April 10, 1972, the document was officially opened for signing, and on March 26, 1975, it entered into force.
As Lieutenant-General Igor Kirillov, head of the troops for radiation, chemical and biological protection of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, told RT, the signing of the convention was the result of many years of efforts by the international community to create a legal framework that supplements the Geneva Protocol.
The convention was the first international instrument that put a barrier to the development, distribution and use of a whole type of weapons of mass destruction.
According to the convention, each state party to it undertakes never and under no circumstances to develop, produce, stockpile, otherwise acquire or retain biological agents or toxins used in armed conflicts, as well as weapons, equipment and means of delivery intended for their use.
All the toxins and biological agents they had were to be destroyed or redirected to peaceful purposes by the participants in the convention.
The document also prohibited assistance and encouragement in the production of "any agents, toxins, weapons, equipment or means of delivery."
Samples of projectiles with probable equipment with a chemical charge
© RIA Novosti / Pavel Lisitsyn
“The States Parties to this Convention undertake to consult and cooperate with each other in resolving any questions that may arise in relation to the purpose or in connection with the implementation of the provisions of the Convention,” Article 5 of the document says.
According to Igor Nikulin, a former member of the UN Commission on Biological Weapons, bacteriological WMD poses a huge threat to humanity, so the convention to ban it once became an extremely relevant document.
“Biological weapons are uncontrollable in nature, as they are self-replicating.
In this sense, it is even more dangerous than nuclear and chemical weapons.
Once applied, it is impossible to control or predict the consequences of its use.
A deadly epidemic in the shortest possible time can cover the entire planet, ”Nikulin emphasized.
"Destructive Position"
In a conversation with RT, Alexander Mikhailov, head of the Bureau of Military-Political Analysis, called the 1972 convention "a powerful and effective international legal instrument."
“After its entry into force, there were no high-profile facts of the use of biological weapons.
However, the threats described in it returned to the 2000s, ”the analyst emphasized.
According to him, this is primarily due to the refusal of the United States in 2001 to accept a protocol to the convention, which introduced mechanisms for mutual control.
Therefore, there is still no way to check the activities of American biologists on issues that are regulated by the convention.
“The United States has literally covered the whole world, including the post-Soviet space, with a network of its biological bases and refuses to explain what they are doing there,” Mikhailov noted.
During his speech at the international conference "Global threats to biological security: problems and solutions" in Sochi on June 24, 2021, Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation Sergey Ryabkov recalled that negotiations on a legally binding protocol to the convention have been blocked since 2001 due to the "destructive position of one state" .
“To substantiate their approaches, the Americans make statements that the BTWC is allegedly unverifiable and work in this area is unpromising... At the same time, persistent attempts are being made by the United States to gain unilateral access to microbiological facilities in other countries.
That is, Washington does not deny the “added value” of inspections, but would like to use this tool exclusively for its own purposes, without linking it with the BTWC,” the Russian diplomat stressed at the time.
As Igor Kirillov noted in a conversation with RT, the Russian Federation is constantly making efforts to create a legally binding verification mechanism under the convention, but this initiative has been consistently blocked by the collective West led by the United States since 2001.
“Unfortunately, in the absence of such a mechanism, the convention in its content is closer to a joint political statement of the participating countries than to a full-scale agreement,” said the head of the RCBZ troops of the RF Armed Forces.
According to Igor Kirillov, the weak point of the convention is also the absence of a specific list of pathogenic biological agents (PBAs), toxins and critical technologies related to the subject of the agreement, as well as the possibility of double interpretation of some provisions of the agreement.
“Thus, the BTWC requirement “...not to develop, produce, stockpile, acquire or store microbiological or other agents or toxins in quantities that have no purpose for prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes...”, may be interpreted by the participants arbitrarily.
For example, the amount of PBA that one state uses for defensive purposes, another state will consider preparation for biological warfare.
In fact, this allows states to possess any stocks of pathogenic biological agents, motivating their presence and use by developing means and methods of protection, ”Igor Kirillov told RT.
At an informal meeting of the UN Security Council on April 6, 2022, Kirillov recalled that during a special operation, the Russian military discovered 30 Pentagon biolaboratories in Ukraine, the infrastructure of which is involved in three main areas: monitoring, collecting dangerous strains and studying agents of biological weapons.
At the same time, the US biological laboratories located in Ukraine raise questions not only for Russia, Dmitry Peskov, press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation, said in a conversation with reporters.
“We have been talking about this for quite a long time after the published data on the laboratories that are located around our borders, including Ukraine.
We talk about this more often, almost every day, but this program that the United States is developing is well known, it is not transparent.
There are a lot of questions regarding this program, not only in our country, but also in other countries of the world.
Of course, we believe that the United States is obliged to provide comprehensive information on these laboratories," Peskov said.
In turn, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said that in reality the Pentagon controls 336 biological laboratories located in 30 countries.
During the briefing, the official representative of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Zhao Lijian, noted that the world community has no understanding of the purposes for which these military facilities were created and what viruses are being studied in them.
According to him, there is reason to believe that such laboratories also work for military purposes: the Russian side revealed signs of this during a special operation in Ukraine.
As Igor Kirillov noted, the activities of American biological laboratories raise many questions both from the standpoint of compliance with the convention and UN Security Council Resolution No. 1540 of April 28, 2004 on the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
According to him, the United States accompanied the ratification of the Geneva Protocol with a number of reservations, one of which allows the retaliatory use of chemical and toxin weapons.
Under the U.S. Federal Law "Uniting and Rallying America Against Terrorism," biological weapons research is allowed with the approval of the U.S. government.
At the same time, the responsibility for the development of such weapons does not extend to participants in such studies.
“An example of such research is the development and patenting in the United States of technical means for the delivery and use of biological weapons.
We are talking about patent No. 8 967 029 dated March 3, 2015 for an unmanned aerial vehicle for spreading infected insects in the air.
The description of the patent states that with the help of this device, enemy troops can be destroyed or disabled without risk to US military personnel, ”said Kirillov.
However, the High Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs Isumi Nakamitsu, commenting on the materials submitted by Russia regarding biological research conducted on the territory of Ukraine, said that the United Nations has neither a mandate nor technical capabilities to initiate its own investigation based on these documents.
“Since the beginning of the implementation of its projects in Ukraine, the United States has deliberately kept silent about them in international reporting, despite their obvious military-biological orientation.
The documents do not reflect projects for the study of pathogenic biological agents, as well as the facts of their funding by the US military department.
Such secrecy is another reason to think about the true goals of the Pentagon in Ukraine, ”Igor Kirillov emphasized.
Work in the laboratory
© RIA Novosti / Alexei Sukhorukov
According to experts, Washington at the international level is blocking Russia's efforts to create a legal mechanism for controlling the nonproliferation of biological weapons.
“The US authorities have actually ceased to follow the spirit of the Convention on the Prohibition of Biological Weapons,” Mikhailov stated.
From his point of view, all signatories of this document have the right to demand an investigation into activities similar to those carried out by American scientists in their biolaboratories.
“What is the point in international treaties if everyone turns a blind eye to a real threat?
The Convention exists for this purpose, in order to respond to them in case of revealing egregious facts.
The Americans take advantage of the fact that, adhering to the letter of the law, they do not engage in any developments on their territory, but instead use the territory of third countries with might and main for this.
Given the specifics of the biological weapons themselves, any, even the smallest, laboratory can become a source of a serious threat, therefore, it is necessary to respond to the activities of the United States in the most serious way, ”summed up Mikhailov.