IN GENEVA this week, countries that ban germ warfare are wondering whether
they should even bother to keep meeting. Their doubts follow the final rejection
by the US of a protocol designed to boost compliance with the Biological Weapons
Convention
(see 鈥淏ioweapons treaty withers鈥�).
Under this package of measures, countries would exchange information about
biological research and quickly send inspection teams to suspicious disease
outbreaks. The US claims this won鈥檛 catch cheaters but, rather, give them a
respectable face to hide behind.
This may be so. But nobody ever said the protocol would guarantee compliance,
just that it would make cheating harder鈥攑artly by making nations develop
and share technologies and expertise for detecting the cheats. The Bush
administration is opposed to multilateral arms controls because it expects
others to cheat, and because it does not want foreign inspectors on its own
territory. The US delegation in Geneva said that countries should simply trust
it when it says it complies with the biological weapons treaty. Meanwhile, the
other treaty members should certainly keep meeting, and go ahead with as many of
the protocol measures as is possible without the US. At least this will tell
countries that wavered about the protocol鈥擨ran, China and the
rest鈥攖hat others are watching. And it will remind the US that trust has to
be earned.
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