ZKEA
World Outbreak Update
CBW Treaties, OverviewAs far as international law goes, CBW efforts are currently in a state of disarray. There are many reasons for this, but the lack of leadership of the United States is currently a key factor. My view is that it will take a world disaster - a viral Hiroshima - before we see much new progress here. Assuming, of course, there is anyone left alive for which to make progress.There are two key Chemical/Biological Weapons (CBW) treaties: the 1925 Geneva Protocol and the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention. The 1925 protocols were incited by the tragedies of World War 1 and the desire to derail the obvious march to weapons of ever-greater destruction. World War 1 saw the first mass use of chemical weapons in warfare plus even a few attempts at biological war (such as the German attempt to infect French horses with glanders). These events were warning shots that could not ignored. Hence the ground-breaking 1925 agreement, which effectively forbade the use of biological weapons for offensive warfare. Unfortunatly these protocols provided little in the way of enforcement. There was also the gaping loophole of allowing defensive biological weapons. For these reasons the treaty was widely flouted. The 1972 agreement attempted to rectify these on of these weaknesses. It illegalized the development and ownership of all such weapons, not merely their use. Unfortunately it provided no inspection protocol. In other words, the treaty relied on the goodness and kindness of strangers. Given human nature and geopolitics, it should come as no surprise that this improved treaty was also largely ignored. (The United States being an exception, although not necessarily for altruistic reasons). The first two links are to Harvard Sussex studies on the Chemical/Biological Weapons (CBW) treaty. Harvard Sussex is a collaboration between Harvard University and the University of Sussex, designed to research and inform public policy around CBW weapons and proliferation. For those interested in the nuances of the development of international law, it's probably the best organization to visit and click through. Their papers summarize the history and development of the CBW regime. Note the increasingly broad agreement as to what constitutes an effective regime. Subsequent links in this archive give different perspectives as well as the full text of the treaty itself.
Link: HSP Overview of CBW
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| Recommended Books |
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The Complete Guide To Biological Weapons
by U.S. Department of Defense |
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The Coming Plague
by Laurie Garret |
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The Demon In The Freezer
by Richard Preston |
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The Collapse Of Public Health
by Laurie Garret |
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The Menace of Emerging Infections
by Madeline Drexler |
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The Hot Zone
by Richard Preston |
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BioHazard
by Ken Alibek |
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Plague Wars
by Tom Mangold |
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The Biology of Doom
by Ed Regis |
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Living Terrors: Survive The Bioterrorist Catastrophe
by Michael Osterholm |
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Scourge: The Once and Future Threat of Smallpox
by Jonathan Tucker |
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Virus X: Tracking The New Killer Plagues
by Frank Ryan |
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Virus Hunter
by C.J. Peters |
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Ebola: Through The Eyes of The People
by William Close |
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The Cobra Event
by Richard Preston |
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Germs: America's Secret War
by Judith Miller |
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Man & Microbes: Plagues Throughout History
by Arno Karlen |