Arms Control

The United States, unlike most members of the Biological Weapons Convention, opposes a verification mechanism to curb the spread of biological weapons, but indications exist that some obstacles to verification may be worked out over time. So far the convention has been ineffective in stopping the spread of biological weapons around the globe. Twenty years ago, four countries were suspected of developing such weapons; today, at least 10 countries fit into that category, some of which are members of the Convention. About one-third of the world's nations are not yet participating, and attempts at recruitment have been unsuccessful because critical Middle East countries refuse to join. Efforts to create a verification regime have also met with little success, mainly because the United States and some other countries oppose an intrusive inspection regime. In addition, proposed voluntary exchange of biological research and vaccine information has also fallen short because most members have not provided the requested information and some submissions have been incomplete. The United States has actively pursued an expansion and refinement of its export controls and created an adequate mechanism to coordinate export licensing for biological organisms, toxins, and related equipment. These items, however, are widely available on the world market because Germany also maintains comprehensive export controls on them. Although the Australia group members recently agreed to establish national export controls on such items, many biological weapons items will still be available on the world market unless the group's membership is expanded. For the Convention to be effective, some kind of verification regime may be needed. The arrangement on biological site visits between the United States, the United Kingdom, and Russia as well as an ongoing study of potential verification measures may be instructive in overcoming obstacles to verification.

GAO found that: (1) the Convention has been ineffective in stopping the development of biological weapons; (2) efforts to strengthen the Convention, which included the recruitment of nonmembers and the creation of a verification system, were unsuccessful because of nonmembers' unwillingness to join the Convention and opposition to an intrusive inspection regime; (3) the United States advocated using confidence-building measures (CBM) such as information sharing so that member nations could exchange biological research and development information; (4) CBM limitations included member nations' failure to submit complete reports and the United Nations' (U.N.) inability to enforce compliance; (5) logistical and practical biological weapon verification difficulties included weapon size, the dual use of biological research and development, and the lack of multilateral information sharing; (6) the United States, United Kingdom, and Russia entered into a trilateral agreement to permit verification visits to build compliance; (7) the United States and Germany were the only countries that developed export controls to increase coordination of export licensing for biological organisms, toxins, and related equipment; and (8) the effectiveness of the Australia Group's efforts to improve export controls depends upon the expansion of its membership and redefinition of export controls.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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