Arms Control: U. S. and International Efforts to Ban Biological Weapons
- ISBN-10
- 128925690X
- ISBN-13
- 9781289256906
- Series
- Arms Control
- Pages
- 76
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2013-07
- Publisher
- BiblioGov
- Authors
- U. S. Government Accountability Office, U S Government Accountability Office
Description
Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on U.S. and international efforts to ban the development of biological weapons, focusing on the effectiveness of: (1) the Biological Weapons Convention and efforts to strengthen it; and (2) U.S. and multilateral export controls in biological weapon proliferation. 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.
