london

Academics concerned with arms control are floating preliminary proposals for a treaty that would make it an international crime for any individual to help a state to develop biological weapons. The treaty would apply, for example, to a researcher coming to the state from a foreign country.

One of the loopholes of the current anti-biological weapons regime is that legal sanctions are left to individual signatory states. This can create a major problem if such a state — Iraq was forced to ratify after the Gulf War in 1991 — proves reluctant to act against those suspected of being engaged in biological weapons work.

The proposal for a new international treaty, which would enable other states to indict such individuals if found on their territory, has been drafted by a group of researchers at Harvard University in the United States and the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom.

“Our idea is to try to find a means to hold individuals responsible,” says Matthew Meselson, professor of natural sciences at Harvard and a long-time campaigner against chemical and biological weapons. “These could be heads of state, or they could be the so-called ‘evil professors’ willing to help another country develop biological weapons.”

Meselson points out that there are several significant precedents for making such activity an international crime, such as the already agreed outlawing of aircraft hijacking and theft of nuclear materials.

Many details would have to be negotiated among potential signatories. A key point, for example, is deciding which court would have ultimate jurisdiction.

But a draft of a possible convention has already been drawn up and is scheduled for eventual submission to the United Nations General Assembly.