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Photo: UHH/Schell

VERIBIO - Rethinking Ways Of Biological Weapons Convention Verification of

The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), along with the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), form a central starting point for the international non-proliferation regime for weapons of mass destruction. However, unlike the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) for the CWC or the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for the NPT, there is currently no institution mandated with verification of the BWC. Investigations about the alleged use of biological weapons only take place within the framework of the so-called United Nations Secretary-General ´s Mechanism (UNSGM), which is not a substitute for a transparent, investigative, treaty-based mechanism.

The absence of a verification regime in the BWC has long been a stumbling block on the path to a stronger agreement. Currently, negotiations are being resumed by the BWC contracting states, among other things, with the aim of identifying possible measures for compliance with and verification of the convention. In this sense, many open questions still need to be answered:

  • What are the general framework conditions for a future BWC verification concept, whilst  taking current technical and political circumstances into account?
  • How should a BWC verification mechanism be designed with regards to the highly diversified biotechnological landscape of the industrial sector, where activities relevant for compliance mechanisms, reside to a significant amongst globally operating, academic or private actors?
  • Which scientific and technical achievements can be usefully applied to the verification mechanism of the BWC to also complement the methods already established under the VNGM?
  • In what relationship to another should a verification mechanism stand to other institutions of the BWC that are currently also being negotiated (e.g. the so-called Science and Technology Board)?

These questions are the focus of the research project of the VERIBIO junior research group, a collaborative project of the University of Hamburg (UHH) and the Technical University of Hamburg (TUHH). At UHH, the Center for Natural Science and Peace Research (ZNF) and the Institute for Computational Systems Biology (CoSy.Bio) are involved, and at TUHH, the Institute for Bioprocess and Biosystem Engineering. The content focus of VERIBIO is on the in-depth examination of the challenges for a possible ex-ante verification mechanism in the industrial sector, which is about recognizing individual bioweapon-related activities of state and private actors as early as possible, i.e. in the development or production phase.

The processing takes place in the form of a multi-layered concept. In the scientific-technical part of VERIBIO, a method for a possible verification of industrial bioprocesses is developed, which can be used as an early warning system without jeopardizing the confidentiality of industrial processes. The system is based on the practical implementation of concepts from bioprocess engineering and bioinformatics. Simultaneously, current scientific and technical developments that could serve as instruments for future BWC-verification are being holistically analyzed. The analysis is accompanied by expert interviews from science and industry, including support through collaboration with the VERIBIO transfer network. Additionally, a concept for BWC-verification is to be developed from the perspective of industrial stakeholders and in close consultation with representatives from industry. The goal is to develop a conceptual framework for BWC-verification in the industrial sector that takes the specifics of a modern digitized and highly networked bioindustry sector into account and  incorporates them meaningfully, while also gaining high acceptance among the involved stakeholders.

The scientific and technical level of VERIBIO is expanded by a political science level. In close collaboration with the scientific and technical part, the requirements for a new conception of verification in the BWC are analyzed with respects to a geopolitically volatile world. In that process, the existing expertise of the working group at the ZNF at the intersection of natural science and peace research will be built upon. The dissemination of research results to policy makers is supported by the Federal Foreign Office, the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR), the German Life Sciences Associoation (VBIO e.V.), the sector assosciation of the biotechnology industry BIO Deutschland e.V., and the Bundeswehr Institute of Microbiologoy as transfer partners for the junior research group.