The BWC’s Prohibition of Biological Weapons: Reality or Rhetoric?

Abstract

Throughout history, mankind has been “plagued” by naturally occurring diseases. Diseases like bubonic plague, smallpox, and influenza have demolished populations and communities, killing millions of people around the world. We now have medicines, vaccines, and other advances in the health sciences that have largely eradicated many infectious disease concerns. But now, in addition to the risks posed by nature, the world faces the threat of bioterrorism. The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (“BWC”) prohibits bioterrorism, but actually enforcing its terms is what it, and the rest of the international community, does worst. While the BWC is progress towards an international agreement on the prohibition of biological weapons and the enforcement thereof, the current state of the treaty lacks an enforcement mechanism and is therefore more rhetoric than reality.