杏吧原创

THE Biological Weapons Convention has been saved from becoming little more than a statement of intent. After a tense week of talks in Geneva, treaty members have agreed to continue annual meetings to discuss voluntary efforts to enforce the treaty. But the discussions will not cover the worst biological threats.

Last week鈥檚 talks were aimed at salvaging the treaty as an international forum for controlling bioweapons. In 2001, a bioweapons treaty conference collapsed after the US rejected a legally binding agreement that would have imposed weapons inspections on members (New 杏吧原创, 1 December 2001, p 11). After that, it was not clear whether any joint activities of treaty members would continue, as the convention itself calls for none.

In September, US officials had said that November鈥檚 meeting should decide only to hold another review conference in 2006, and threatened to name countries with bioweapons programmes if other signatories tried to achieve more. But last week they agreed on a compromise: member states will meet yearly, but only to discuss certain topics.

Next year they will discuss laws to control pathogens and make the development and possession of bioweapons illegal. In 2004, they will discuss international efforts to monitor infectious diseases, and to investigate alleged uses of bioweapons. In 2005, they will discuss codes of conduct for microbiologists.

Oliver Meier of the Arms Control Association, a pressure group based in Washington DC, says these topics do not address the gravest threats. 鈥淚 doubt codes of conduct are going to be what everyone is most concerned about in 2005,鈥� he says. He believes developments in science and technology that might lead to weapons, and the secrecy around such work, are more important.

Also in Geneva last week, the ACA, together with other pressure groups, launched the BioWeapons Prevention Project (), a network of private organisations that will collect and publicise information about research and policies affecting bioweapons.