Written evidence
Submitted to the Foreign Affairs Committee
Memorandum submitted by the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office
BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS GREEN PAPER
Letter to the Parliamentary Relations
and Devolution Department, Foreign and Commonwealth Office from
the Clerk of Committee, 11 September 2003
The Committee at its meeting on Tuesday considered
the Government's Response[1]
to its Report on the Biological Weapons Green Paper[2].
The Committee appreciates the very full response
to its conclusions and recommendations. I have been asked to offer
one comment and to make one request.
In relation to the BWC[3]
verification protocol, and noting the explanation of the Government's
judgment that it is not politically feasible to resurrect the
protocol, the Committee nevertheless trusts that the Government
will not abandon all hope of agreement, and that it will be in
a position to respond quickly and positively to any new development
or change of heart elsewhere.
The Committee would also welcome a report from
the FCO on the outcome of the BWC experts' meeting held last month,
and on any other recent, relevant developments.
Clerk of Committee
September 2003
Letter to the Clerk of Committee from
the Parliamentary Relations and Devolution Department, oreign
and Commonwealth Office, 15 October 2003
Thank you for your letter of 11 September.
Following its consideration of the Government's
response to its Report on the Biological Weapons Green Paper,
the Committee said that it trusted that the Government would not
abandon all hope of agreement on a BWC protocol and that it would
be in a position to respond quickly and positively to any new
development or change of heart elsewhere. The Government reassures
the Committee that if the wider international context proves more
favourable, then the UK would most certainly wish to be at the
forefront of any renewed effort to strengthen the BWC through
agreement on a verification protocol. In the EU document setting
out Basic Principles against Proliferation of Weapons of Mass
Destruction, agreed at Thessaloniki in June this year, there was
a commitment to the establishment of additional verification instruments,
where necessary, in order to deter non-compliance.
The Committee also asked for a report on the
outcome of the BWC Expert's meeting. The 2003 BWC States Parties
Experts' Meeting had two topics on its agenda during its 18-29
August session: the adoption of necessary national measures to
implement the prohibitions set forth in the Convention, including
the enactment of penal legislation; and national mechanisms to
establish and maintain the security and oversight of pathogenic
microorganisms and toxins. The UK delegation submitted two principal
working papers identifying core elements for legislation in these
areas. These were aimed at those States Parties that had either
no legislation in place, or were considering amending or expanding
their existing regulatory provisions relevant to national implementation
of the BWC and oversight of pathogenic microorganisms and toxins.
In addition, Home Office, National Counter Terrorism Security
Office, Health and Safety Executive, Dstl[4]
Porton Down and Department of Transport experts made presentations
on aspects of biosecurity and biosafety legislation and implementation
in the UK. Working papers were also submitted on UK export control
legislation, emergency response, licensing arrangements for animal
pathogens, as well as a report of a joint FCO and Universities
of Bradford and Nottingham seminar on BWC issues.
The conduct of the Meeting and the considerable
information produced were successful in going some way to promoting
common understandings on its two agenda items. Over eighty States
Parties participated with over 400 individual delegates. The US
and Germany also made significant contributions as did many Central
and Eastern European States Parties. Members of the NAM group
also spoke. In total, there were over seventy thematic presentations
during the two-week meeting. The Government believes that the
Experts' Meeting was particularly successful since there was none
of the rancour and divisions that attended the demise of the BWC
Protocol and Fifth Review Conference in 2001.
This meeting has thus helped re-establish international
cooperation in the campaign to combat BW proliferation. Our attention
is now focused on ensuring that there is a concrete outcome to
the political meeting of States Parties in November (10-14). The
Government will be working hard to ensure that core issues can
be identified from the material presented at the August meeting
as the basis for further action by States Parties, either individually
or collectively. We will be working closely with the Chairman,
Ambassador Tibor T?th, and other like-minded States Parties to
this end during the forthcoming intersessional period.
The Government will undertake to provide a further
report to the Committee in late November this year on the progress
achieved at that meeting.
Parliamentary Relations and Devolution Department
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
May 2003
1 CM 5713 Back
2
First Report from the Foreign Affairs Committee, Session 2002-03,
The Biological Weapons Green Paper, HC 150 Back
3
Biological Weapons Convention Back
4
Defence Science and Technology Laboratory Back
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