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The humanitarian dimension of the Convention on “silent weapons”
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 January 2010
Extract
Analysing the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction, concluded a quarter of a century ago (10 April 1972), American expert Lynn M. Hansen wrote: “The spectre of biological warfare is something no person enjoys contemplating. The spectre is real, however, as man has learned how to use biology to wage war against himself. Fortunately, the international community in 1972 outlawed these weapons.” This is the essence of the Convention.
- Type
- The Convention on Bacteriological (Biological) Weapons: 25 years on
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © International Committee of the Red Cross 1997
Footnotes
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Dr. Valentin A. Romanov is professor of international law at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. He has held senior posts at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Moscow and at the United Nations Legal Counsel's Office in New York. He is the author of several monographs and articles on issues related to international law and international relations.
References
1 Hansen, Lynn M., “Arms Control in Vitro”, Disarmament, A periodic review by the United Nations, Volume X, No. 1, Winter 1986/1987, p. 59.Google Scholar
2 For the Russian version of the Convention see «Μeжɡунароɡное гуманuмарное nраво в ɡокуменмах». СоСтавитеΛи Ю.М. КОΛосов, И.И. КотΛΛяров, М., Издателbство Московского Независимого института международного права, 1996, CTP. 445–450 ( Kolosov, Y.M., Kotlyarov, I.I. (eds), International humanitarian law in documents, Moscow Independent Institute of International Law Publishers, 1996, pp. 445–450).Google Scholar
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13 This does not mean, however, that groundless accusations of violating the Convention can be made against the former USSR in connection with the outbreak of anthrax in 1979 in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg). The State Ad-Hoc Anti-Epidemic Commission found that the Sverdlovsk region had been subject to the threat of anthrax for several centuries and that this type of disease was considered endemic to the territory. Anthrax nidi were proved to be present in the soil. The analysis of the dynamics of contracting the infection showed that the anthrax outbreak had spanned the period of a month and a half; the infecting agents were found in assays of mixed fodder for cattle, and in meat and meat products belonging to some residents of the region; the strain of the infecting agent extracted from those samples and that found in the people who had contracted the disease were identical. The 1979 outbreak of anthrax in Sverdlovsk did not and cound not have had anything to do with the local military centre's research on vaccine preparations against anthrax.
14 Россия: в поисках стратегии безопасности. Проблемы безопасности, ограничения вооружений и миротворчества. М., Наука, стр. 114. (Russia: in search of the security strategy. The problems of security, limitation of armaments and peacemaking. Moscow, Nauka, p. 114).
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