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It is being negotiated now in Geneva. It is going to have very complex procedures. The treaty is this thick in its present draft form and not all of the annexes have been completed by any means. And in particular, it is going to place very complicated and even onerous requirements on the U.S. chemical industry.

It will be difficult for our negotiators to persuade other governments that we are serious about all of this, that we really are going to go through with this chemical weapons treaty and that we are going to accept all of these constraints on our own chemical industry, if we are not able to do something as simple as what you have proposed here in this bill that you have put before the Senate.

I, therefore, hope very much that you are successful in this, and I am grateful that you have taken this initiative.

Thank you.

[The statement of Ambassador Leonard follows:]

Testimony of

Ambassador James F. Leonard

before the

Senate Judiciary Committee

on

Biological Weapons

July 26, 1989

Mr. Chairman:

I wish to support the enactment by the Congress of legislation to implement the Biological Weapons Convention. My argument is very simple: we committed ourselves in the treaty negotiations to action along these lines, and we should keep out commitment.

I was the head of the United States delegation during these negotiations from early 1969 to late 1971. A number of aspects of the Biological Warfare Convention were controversial then or have become controversial since, but not this provision. There was a consensus among the negotiating parties that since no two national legal systems are precisely identical in the force and effectiveness they assign to treaty obligations within their own domestic legal systems, it was desirable to complement the prohibitions and undertakings of Articles I, II, and III with the sort of provision that became Article IV. This article adds to the obligations that the states parties accept under the treaty by committing them also to extend these obligations to their citizens and residents. Thus, not only is the U.S. Government barred by the Treaty from developing biological weapons, etc., it is also bound to bar its citizens from doing so.

The treaty calls on each party to take this additional action "in accordance with its constitutional processes." In our case, this of course means a law passed by the Congress and signed by the President. It is not an optional action. It could have been made optional by using the work "may" rather than "shall" as the seventh word of Article IV. The use of the word "shall" was not an accident, or an impulse on the part of the negotiators; it was used under clear instructions from the Secretary of State, instructions which had been reviewed and approved in all the relevant departments of our government. Far from being controversial within the U.S. Government or accepted reluctantly under pressure from other governments, Article IV was actively desired by us. It responded to fears on the part of some officials that the Soviet Union or some other government might diligently search out and utilize any loophole that the treaty left. Article IV was thus seen as a necessary "sealing off" of one possible loophole through which the treaty could be drained of its effectiveness.

Others will have to provide detailed comment on the particular provisions of the bill you are considering, or on the dangers which might arise if research is not properly constrained by legislation, or is improperly constrained. I would like to offer only a concluding comment from the vantage point of a professional negotiator. There are two basic rules which I believe successful negotiators have observed for many centuries. They are (1) never bluff, never make threats that cannot be carried out, and (2) never over-promise, never agree to do things that cannot be done. A negotiator may get away with unreal threats or promises for a time, but only for a time. And then his credibility and his ability to negotiate effectively will be finished. What applies to an individual applies also to a nation, and it is for this reason that I take very seriously our failure so far to follow through on a commitment - however secondary of the sort we are discussing here.

Our government wants a treaty which will follow up on the BW Convention by prohibiting possession of chemical weapons. It is being negotiated in Geneva, just now. It will be far more complex than the BW Convention, with intricate and even onerous obligations controlling domestic chemical industry. How can our negotiators be fully effective in persuading the Soviets and others to accept these obligations if they cannot be confident that the U.S. Government, and in the first instance the Congress, will move in a timely way to meet our obligations under a CW Treaty and institute appropriate controls within our domestic jurisdiction? The legislation you are considering will help to establish confidence abroad and thus help to answer this important question. This legislation is thus very much in our security interest.

Senator KOHL. Thank you, Ambassador Leonard.
Mr. Godown?

STATEMENT OF MR. RICHARD GODOWN

Mr. GODOWN. Senator Kohl, the biotechnology industry is adamantly opposed to the development of biotechnology weapons, period.

The IBA Board of Directors is firmly on record endorsing the 1972 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological and Toxin Weapons and their Destruction, and it is generally supportive of implementing legislation. In fact, we would be delighted to work with you and your staff in perfecting S. 993.

I would like to take this opportunity to point out that contrary to popular belief, biological weapons can be produced without the use of the techniques of modern biotechnology. There is no need for terrorists to genetically engineer a biological weapon when a vial of AIDS virus or botulin or anthrax or salmonella to name just a few can already produce deadly results. It would be pointless to genetically engineer an organism to do what normally occurring organisms can already do.

IBA's chief concern about the enabling legislation which is now in front of the committee is that peaceful research utilizing biological agents might be restricted in some manner.

It is important not only to the biotechnology industry, but the broader biomedical research community that any legislation allow continued research toward developing prophylactic approaches to public health problems, whether here or in developing countries. Biotechnology offers new approaches to vaccine development and we would not like to see these approaches unduly hindered.

Small amounts of virulent toxins are routinely produced for research use by the scientific community. We would note that a variety of microbial and plant toxins have been used to elucidate fundamental cellular events. Much of this research has been used to develop therapeutic approaches to disease.

Research scientists have been looking at ways to take advantage of cytoxicity of these toxins. The entry of little as one molecule of a toxin into a living cell can result in cell death.

Thus, if the toxin could be targeted to a cancer cell or one infected with AIDS virus, then these specific cells could be destroyed while normal cells went on unaffected.

With the development of recombinant DNA and monoclonal antibody technology, this magic bullet approach to therapy is being realized. Monoclonal antibodies have been developed as specifically bind to the surfaces of cancer cells. A number of different types of toxins have been linked to these antibodies and they have shown to be able to selectively kill cancer cells in the laboratory.

Recent research has also shown that cells that are infected with AIDS virus express a particular determinant on their surface that can also be targeted.

A protein called CD4 binds to the surface of these cells that have this surface protein. Investigators at NIH have received a patent for a toxin linked CD4 protein that selectively kills this class of

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