Marie Isabelle Chevrier - Böcker

In this work, an expert on biological weapons offers a thoughtful examination of the political and technical issues that have affected the implementation of arms control agreements from the 1960s to the present.Arms Control Policy: A Guide to the Issues examines the history of the major arms control treaties since the early 1960s. It offers readers a broad understanding of the ways in which arms control agreements were negotiated and implemented during the Cold War, the international and national events that affected treaty negotiation and implementation, and how the arms control landscape has changed in the war's aftermath. Specifically, the handbook overviews the obligations contained in bilateral U.S.-Soviet/Russian and multilateral arms control agreements covering nuclear and nonnuclear weapons. It also treats such agreements as the Biological Weapons Convention, the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Treaty to Ban Land Mines, and the Treaty to Ban Cluster Munitions. The book concludes with a look at the current challenges in the implementation of arms control agreements and the future of arms control.

Incidents of bioterrorism and biowarfare are likely to recur, leading to increased public concern and government action. The deficiencies of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) are in urgent need of attention: the BTWC is the central international agreement to prevent the proliferation of biological warfare programmes. Uniquely, this book is written by diplomats involved in the decade-long effort (1991-2001) in which State Parties to the BTWC tried to agree a Protocol to the Convention with legally binding measures to strengthen its effectiveness, and academics concerned with the negotiations. Just before negotiations foundered, when the Chairman's proposed text was virtually complete, the problems and proposed solutions were examined thoroughly, leading to this book. The book is wide-ranging in its review of the history of biological warfare, the reasons why the current biological revolution is of such concern, and the main features of the BTWC itself. The core of the book examines the key elements of the proposed protocol - declarations, visits, challenge-type investigations, and enhanced international cooperation - and the implications for government, industry and biodefence, giving us all a better understanding of what still remains to be done to avert a biowarfare catastrophe.