test_pdf.pdf

ASSESSING
THE RECORD
OF ARMS
CONTROL
way in many countries. There are no rules against acquiring a nuclear fuel capability, no bans on nuclear weapons
research, and no legal provision of nuclear-related cooperation between non-nuclear-weapon states. The CTBT is not
in force, nor is there a fissile material cutoff treaty.
Finally, most of the 13 steps agreed to at the 2000 NPT Review Conference for progress in nuclear disarmament
have not been implemented. This mixed record has led some observers to declare confidently that the NPT regime is
moribund and obsolete. I do not believe it is so bad or too late. But the world urgently needs to work to strengthen its
nuclear disarmament, nonproliferation, and anti-terror mechanisms. Efforts by organizations in civil society, such as
the Arms Control Association, can do much to promote responsible actions to address the many unresolved problems
of the nuclear arms control agenda.
At the outset, I said it is the results that count, so let us revitalize the arms control process, expand our common
search for the practical means to achieve disarmament and nonproliferation goals, and to strengthen the ability to
verify and secure the compliance with nonproliferation and disarmament commitments. For this reason, I salute the
Arms Control Association, not just for its persistence, but for its keen vision of the goals ahead and for its many efforts
to identify and to promote practical measures that are so vitally needed to achieve them.
Let me send my best wishes for your efforts over the years to come. Thank you very much.
MR. STEINBRUNER: Thank you. We do appreciate the encouragement and your presence here.
The final presentation from the panel before we begin discussion will be on the questions of outlawing chemical
and biological weapons. It will be made by Elisa Harris, who is a colleague of mine at the University of Maryland,
well known to all of you as the director of Nonproliferation and Export Controls for the National Security Council
during the Clinton administration, and prior to that a well known scholar of this subject.
Elisa.
ELISA HARRIS: Thank you, John. Good morning, everyone. I’m delighted to participate in this important
conference and to be on this panel with such distinguished colleagues. It’s also terrific to be back at Georgetown,
which is my alma mater. I didn’t know Paul Warnke personally but have been a great admirer of not only his
scholarly work but also of the many things he achieved when he was in public service.
I’ve been asked to assess the record of arms control efforts involving chemical and biological weapons, and so
I’m going to assume, since I’ve been given two weapons systems to discuss, I can take a little bit more time than my
distinguished colleagues.
Efforts to prevent the use of chemical and biological weapons of course go back more than 100 years. There was
the 1899 Hague gas declaration, which outlawed the use of projectiles containing asphyxiating gases, and the 1907
Hague convention, which outlawed poison weapons. It was, though, the 1925 Geneva Protocol which ushered in the
era of modern arms control efforts with respect to CW [chemical weapons] and BW [biological weapons]; it prohibited
the wartime use of poison gas, as well as bacteriological methods of warfare. As many of you know, many
countries, upon ratifying the Geneva Protocol, reserved the right to retaliate in kind should others use chemical or
biological weapons against them, or to use such weapons against nonparties. As a consequence, the Geneva Protocal
over the years came to be seen as a sort of no-first-use agreement.
Half a century later, in 1972, the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention [BWC] was concluded and it
banned biological and toxin weapons. It was the first arms control agreement to eliminate an entire class of weapons
of mass destruction, but it contained no verification provisions—no means of ensuring that countries were complying
with their obligations. Twenty years later, when the CWC [Chemical Weapons Convention] was concluded, the
situation was very different. It was a milestone for exactly the opposite reason, because it contains the most intrusive
verification provisions ever negotiated in a multilateral agreement.
When Daryl first called me and asked me to speak on this panel about the record of arms control efforts to
outlaw chemical and biological weapons, I realized that there were a number of ways one could approach this
subject. What I would like to do in the time that I have this morning is to focus on three questions: first, whether these
treaties have helped reinforce the norm against the use of chemical and biological weapons; secondly, whether
they’ve helped de-legitimize possession of such weapons; and finally, whether they’ve helped stem the proliferation
of chemical and biological weapons.
Let me begin first with preventing use. I think assessing the record of these treaties in terms of preventing the use
of chemical and biological weapons is probably the most difficult question given the unique circumstances of every
conflict over the past century.
So let’s look at the facts. By any measure, chemical and biological weapons have been used very rarely in armed
conflict since chlorine was used at Ypres in April 1915. There have been only about half a dozen significant uses of
chemical weapons over the past nearly 100 years. There was of course the use of gas by Britain against the Bolsheviks
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