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Is the World Falling Apart (And How Would We Know)? 67<br />
are legitimate weapons to use under any circumstances? Who<br />
speaks of a bioweapon umbrella? 61<br />
At the time of the negotiation of the BWC, the threat from<br />
biological weapons was thought to be from states. Therefore the Convention<br />
sought to limit any activities dealing with biological material<br />
that had “no justification for prophylactic, protective or other peaceful<br />
purposes.” 62 Today, with advances in the biological sciences and<br />
proliferation of technology, capabilities for manipulating biological<br />
material have been democratized, allowing access to these technologies<br />
to even untrained people. The range of potential biological threats<br />
has thereby been expanded to include not just state threats and naturally<br />
occurring disease, but bioterrorism, dangerous experiments, and<br />
accidents. Traditional biological agents such as weaponized bubonic<br />
plague or anthrax remain threats, but now the capacity to manipulate<br />
biological agents to increase virulence and transmissibility, create<br />
new pathogens from base proteins, and even alter the essence of life<br />
by the manipulation of the genome, have become widely available. In<br />
short, biotechnology has evolved from an art and science to an industrial<br />
and engineering process.<br />
Many analysts warn that the leading biological weapons threat<br />
today arises from a three-year-old gene-editing tool called CRISPR.<br />
Developed at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Massachusetts<br />
Institute of Technology, CRISPR is “a method of snipping and<br />
editing genes that bacteria have used for billions of years, but humans<br />
have deployed only for about thirty-six months.” 63 In February 2016,<br />
Director of National Intelligence Clapper identified genome-editing<br />
technology as a potential weapon of mass destruction. 64<br />
61 Angela Kane, UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, video message<br />
to the Biological Weapons Convention: 40th Anniversary Event, Geneva, Switzerland,<br />
March 30, 2015.<br />
62 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention Website, University of Bradford, undated.<br />
63 Laurie Garrett, CRISPR: Transformative and Troubling, Council on Foreign Relations,<br />
April 13, 2016.<br />
64 James R. Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, “Worldwide Threat Assessment of<br />
the U.S. Intelligence Community,” statement for the record to the Senate Select Committee
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