The Future of Biological Disarmament by Nicholas A. Sims

Author:Nicholas A. Sims [Sims, Nicholas A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Military, General, Political Science, International Relations, Arms Control, Law Enforcement, Peace
ISBN: 9781134024896
Google: cz59AgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2009-03-04T15:52:54+00:00

The basis of an Accountability Framework

The Accountability Framework has a legal basis, and also a prudential or commonsense basis.

The legal basis in its starkest form is most evident in Article VI. A State Party which finds that another State Party is in breach of its BWC obligations holds it accountable before the UN Security Council. But States Parties are also accountable to one another in a milder form through Article V. There, they are under an explicit obligation to consult and cooperate, over a wide range of BWC-relevant problems. This too is a legally binding obligation. If each State Party was accountable only to itself, Article V and Article VI could not exist.

The prudential or commonsense basis takes over where the legal basis leaves off. Here, the Accountability Framework rests on the proposition that even where they are not legally bound it makes sense for States Parties to behave towards one another in certain ways. Reassurance rests upon States Parties demonstrating their compliance with the BWC in systematic and reliably predictable patterns of behaviour: the more systematic, and reliably predictable, the better.

By volunteering information about its implementation of the BWC, a State Party is filling out the sketched picture, or putting flesh on the skeleton. It is putting its compliance record fully on display. Compliance with BWC obligations means much more than merely abstaining from biological weapons (BWs) (although that central obligation remains fundamental). There are many other things a State Party can do to demonstrate that it is fully adhering to the treaty. The Accountability Framework enables it to demonstrate its treaty performance systematically and enables informed comparisons to be made. It also assists the balanced evolution of the BWC treaty regime by keeping each of its sectors in view with equal clarity, so that no one sector can become so prominent that it obscures the others. Thereby, it should do what Masood Khan’s Action Plan for Comprehensive Implementation was trying to do, but with a better chance of success because it would be more flexible – and because it would be developed under less pressure of time than in the final week of a Review Conference.26

A State Party may have more to say about one article than another, though it would be prudent to ensure that it can say something about Article IV as well as Article X, or about Article X as well as Article IV.

The Accountability Framework must avoid the inflexibility of the CBMs, which tend towards anachronism because they were set in stone in 1987–1991 and seemingly cannot be touched (or so, at least, the Sixth Review Conference deadlock suggested) until and unless there is a drastic improvement in the rate of response. The examples offered below for the Accountability Framework, by contrast, constitute a set of indicative questions only, article by article. As indicative questions they are illustrative, not definitive.

Outside Article VI and (in a milder form) Article V, where legal obligation is the basis of accountability, the voluntary principle prevails. This voluntary basis maximises flexibility.

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