BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS CONVENTION 127 Depositary Governments, a conference of States Parties to the Convention shall be held at Geneva, Switzerland, to review the operation of the Convention, with a view to assuring that the purposes of the preamble and the provisions of the Convention, including the provisions concerning negotiations on chemical weapons, are being realized. Such review shall take into account any new scientific and technological developments relevant to the Convention. Article XIII (1) This Convention shall be of unlimited duration. (2) Each State Party to this Convention shall in exercising its national sovereignty have the right to withdraw from the Convention if it decides that extraordinary events, related to the subject matter of the Convention, have jeopardized the supreme interests of its country. It shall give notice of such withdrawal to all other States Parties to the Convention and to the United Nations Security Council three months in advance. Such notice shall include a statement of the extraordinary events it regards as having jeopardized its supreme interests. Article XIV (1) This Convention shall be open to all States for signature. Any State which does not sign the Convention before its entry into force in accordance with paragraph (3) of this Article may accede to it at any time. (2) This Convention shall be subject to ratification by signatory States. Instruments of ratification and instruments of accession shall be deposited with the Governments of the United States of America, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which are hereby designated the Depositary Governments. (3) This Convention shall enter into force after the deposit of instruments of ratification by twenty-two Governments, including the Governments designated as Depositaries of the Convention. (4) For States whose instruments of ratification or accession are deposited subsequent to the entry into force of this Convention, it shall enter into force on the date of the deposit of their instruments of ratification or accession. (5) The Depositary Governments shall promptly inform all signatory and acceding States of the date of each signature, the date of deposit of each instrument of ratification or of accession and the date of the entry into force of this Convention, and of the receipt of other notices. (6) This Convention shall be registered by the Depositary Governments pursuant to Article 102 of the Charter of the United Nations. Article XV This Convention, the English, Russian, French, Spanish and Chinese texts of which are equally authentic, shall be deposited in the archives of the Depositary Governments. Duly certified copies of the Convention shall be transmitted by the Depositary Governments to the Governments of the signatory and acceding states. IN WITNESS WHEREOF the undersigned, duly authorized, have signed this Convention. DONE in triplicate, at the cities of Washington, London and Moscow, this tenth day of April, one thousand nine hundred and seventy-two. The Honorable Herbert Kohl Washington, D.C. 20510 Dear Senator Kohl: August 1, 1989 We are writing to endorse enthusiastically S.993, the Biological Weapons AntiTerrorism Act of 1989 that you introduced in May 1989. We commend your willingness to take the lead over an issue that has been neglected for 15 years. Passage of such a bill is necessary to conform domestic law with the international obligations we undertook by ratifying the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention which banned the development, production, possession and transfer of all biological and toxin weapons. As you are aware, the United States generally follows up treaty ratification with required domestic legislation. The Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act would make it a federal crime for any private citizen or corporation, including any governmental personnel, to develop, produce, or possess any biological agent or toxin for use as a weapon of mass destruction. Though the Biological Weapons Convention itself bars the U.S. government from developing biological weapons, it provides no domestic penalties against private individuals, or even terrorists, for work on biological weapons. In light of increasing concern in the U.S. and around the world about biological and chemical weapons proliferation, it is urgent that the U.S. move quickly to complete this long overdue action. We congratulate you for holding a hearing on the bill and obtaining the endorsement of the Bush Administration, with some minor suggestions on wording. We urge you to work for early adoption of the bill by the Judiciary Committee and the Senate. Thank you for inviting me to comment on Senate Bill 993. I am sorry that I was out of the country until just a few days ago but I will take this opportunity to make a few observations now. I believe it would be very desirable to enact legislation that would implement the BW convention. I support that very strongly. There are nevertheless complications and difficulties in translating treaty obligations, which apply among sovereign states, to governing the acts of individuals. There are also severe definitional problems that I know will get your very careful attention. The term "weapons of mass destruction" appears in the preamble to the BW Convention but not in its text: as it has not been well defined I do not think it belongs in the legislation. I have a radical suggestion to cover what we are looking for with respect to sanctions on individual behavior: Make it a federal crime for an individual to release or threaten to release an infectious biological agent with the intention of assault: of doing harm to any individual or individuals, to assist others to do the same, or to conspire to perpetrate such acts. Besides its relationship to the BWC, such crimes are a matter of federal interest because they go beyond other forms of personal assault and homicide by endangering the community at large. While this may seem to be at a different vector than your bill - 5.993. I believe that it would actually encompass all of the Senator Herb Kohl August 10, 1989 -2 realistic cases that could be envisaged, including individual homicide, terrorism, and military acts in violation of the BWC. Terrorist acts could after all be directed at individuals or small numbers of individuals, not necessarily acts of "mass destruction". There are many other loose ends in the Convention but I urge you not to try to address them in legislation: they are already troublesome in international discussion, like the definition of "toxins". These are better coordinated with chemical weapons and their control. As to the seizure and destruction of dangerous material, that ought to be embraced under existing law as (a) material evidence (b) environmental safety and (c) interstate transport and export of dangerous material. |