Verification of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention / Edition 1

by Malcolm R. Dando, G.S. Pearson, Tibor Toth

Overview

In the summer of 1997 some twelve lecturers and sixty students met for ten days in Budapest Hungary in a NATO Advanced Studies Institute (ASI) to consider "New Scientific and Technical Aspects of Verification of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention". In many ways the meeting was ahead of its time. The Ad Hoc Group was only then about to move to the discussion of a rolling text of the Prool to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC). It had been mandated to negotiate the Prool by the Special Conference which had considered the work of the VEREX process that had taken place following the 1991 Third Review Conference of the Convention. Now, in late 1999, after much further negotiation of the text of the Prool we are moving towards the endgame of the negotiations. Nevertheless, the scientific and technical issues discussed in the ASI in Hungary continue to be of direct relevance to the verification of the Convention and will continue to be relevant as the eventual Prool moves from agreement through a Preparatory Commission stage and into full implementation over the next several years. The papers in this volume are much as they were presented in Budapest both in order of presentation and in content. They were designed by the ASI co-directors, Professor Graham Pearson and Ambassador Tibor Toth (Chairman of the Ad Hoc Group) to provide an integrated overview and in-depth analysis of the issues at stake.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789048155378
Publisher:	Springer Netherlands
Publication date:	12/08/2010
Series:	NATO Science Partnership Subseries: 1 , #32
Edition description:	Softcover reprint of hardcover 1st ed. 2000
Pages:	252
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.45(h) x 0.02(d)

Table of Contents

The Prohibition of Chemical and Biological Weapons.- Biological Weapons Proliferation Concerns.- The Biotechnology Revolution: The Science and Applications.- The Relevance of Advances in Biotechnology to the Task of Strengthening the BTWC.- Technological Aspects of Verification: Declarations, Managed Access and Confidential Proprietary Information.- Technological Aspects of Verification: Investigation of Alleged Use of BW.- Verification Technologies: Sampling and Identification.- Biological Agent Detection Technology.- Towards a Verification Prool.- Prospects for the Ad Hoc Group.- An Overview of the ASI and a 1999 Postscript.

Editorial Reviews

In light of continuing negotiations toward such a convention, ten papers and a 1999 update from a summer 1997 NATO meeting in Budapest examine some of the issues around verifying compliance once a convention is in place. Combining scientific and technical considerations with political ones, they explore biological weapons proliferation concerns, the relevance of advances in biotechnology to the task of strengthening the Convention, technical aspects of investigating the alleged use of biological weapons, sampling and identification technologies, and a verification protocol. Hopefully the negotiators can obtain copies directly and avoid the outlandish price of the collection. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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