ABSTRACT
Both the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) are multilateral treaties negotiated between states. In many respects, both are products of the period in which they were negotiated, namely the Cold War, and the context in which they were negotiated strongly influenced their design. For example, the overwhelming threat in the minds of negotiators at the time was the possibility of armed confrontation between the superpowers and their allies and the use of chemical or biological weapons (CB weapons) in such a confrontation. International terrorism emerged as a major issue during the 1970s (and after the BWC had been concluded) but it was not until the mid-1990s that terrorists demonstrated a willingness to inflict mass casualties and an interest in CB weapons. While the precise reasons for the negotiation and conclusion of both treaties were different, the underlying purpose of both is to strengthen the existing taboo against the use of such weapons in warfare and to ensure that states that possess such weapons destroy them. Particularly in the case of the CWC negotiations, the focus of the negotiators was on ‘militarily significant’ quantities of chemical agent, i.e. those the use of which could change the course of events on the battlefield. Other reasons, such as preventing the proliferation of CB weapons to states that did not possess them, and preventing the acquisition of CB weapons by sub-state actors such as terrorists were either secondary priorities or, as appears to be the case with terrorism, were not expressed at all. Clearly, things have changed since but, as negotiated, neither the BWC nor the CWC were designed to address a threat from international terrorists.
