*EPF315 07/25/01
Proposed Biological Weapons Protocol Unfixable, U.S. Official Says
(U.S. will seek alternatives to enforce convention, he says) (640)
By Merle D. Kellerhals, Jr.
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- The United States will pursue alternative ways to enforce the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) that do not pose risks for U.S. bio-warfare defense preparations, sensitive commercial information and multilateral export regimes, a senior State Department official said July 25.

Ambassador Donald Mahley, special negotiator for chemical and biological arms control issues, formally announced in Geneva that the United States was rejecting a U.N. draft protocol that was designed to enforce provisions of the long-standing convention.

After Mahley's announcement in Geneva, a senior U.S. official at a State Department briefing in Washington discussed the U.S. position, saying the draft protocol "added nothing to our verification capabilities." However, he emphasized that the United States continues to support the BWC.

The pact, which 143 nations -- including the United States -- have ratified, requires parties not to develop, produce, stockpile or acquire biological agents or toxins that would be used as weapons. The United States unilaterally renounced use of biological and toxin weapons in 1969.

However, when the convention was negotiated it did not provide for verification and enforcement.

Six years ago international negotiators formed a BWC Ad Hoc Group to develop a monitoring accord. Hungarian diplomat Tibor Toth, who chairs the negotiations, crafted the protocol under discussion in Geneva at the 24th meeting of the group this week.

The senior U.S. official, who spoke on the condition that he not be identified, said the draft protocol failed to satisfy concerns of both the Bush and Clinton administrations.

"The concerns that were expressed today in Geneva, substantively, are precisely the same concerns that were expressed during the Clinton administration. There are some 37 items on which there is unanimous interagency consensus in the United States government ... that make this protocol unacceptable," he said.

It was the view of the interagency group that there are three significant security risks for the United States if this protocol were to become effective, he said.

First, it would have caused risks in U.S. biological warfare defensive preparations, he said. Second, there was a risk of the loss of highly sensitive and highly valuable intellectual property from the U.S. pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, and finally the risk of the loss of integrity and utility in the multilateral export control regimes the U.S. participates in.

"So that on a cost-benefit analysis, looking at this treaty in purely cost-benefit terms, it has zero benefits," he said. "And [it] has three categories of substantial downsides."

He said that, while many U.S. friends and allies are disappointed by this decision, "we don't expect that any of them are really surprised because we have consulted extensively on this to explain to them what our difficulties are."

The United States will be promoting over the next several months, before the November 2001 BWC Review Conference, a range of alternative methods for enforcing and strengthening the BWC, he said.

"We think this text is unfixable and our preference would be to close this chapter and move on to the alternatives," the senior U.S. official said. "We will look at other ways to see if it can be enforced more effectively against what is the real problem, which is states that have signed the underlying Biological Weapons Convention and are lying about their compliance with it."

One alternative being proposed involves efforts to expand surveillance and control of sensitive technology through a program developed by the 30-member Australia Group, which screens and coordinates controls of the sale of such technology, he said.

(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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