The future of biological disarmament is not limited to the fate of one treaty. Increasingly, it has come to be accepted that the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) is only one element in a ‘web of prevention’1 and that other instruments, national and international, have their own part to play in ensuring a world free from the deliberate infliction of death and suffering through disease.2 The BWC addresses the particular threat of the weaponisation of disease and bans a range of activities directly relevant to that threat.