Understanding Biological Disarmament: The Historical Context of the Origins of the Biological Weapons Convention

取缔整个类别的武器是朝着建立一个更安全的世界迈出的重要一步。40年前的1972年4月10日，世界各国应邀签署新的《生物武器公约》，迈出了这方面的第一步。这项酝酿了几年的条约试图禁止生物武器，或者更通俗地说，细菌战。因此，它不仅尝试限制生物武器，而且还尝试全面裁军，这是值得注意的。三年后，该条约生效，换句话说，其条款现在具有完全的法律效力。目前，尽管经历了各种挫折，仍有165个国家是《生物武器公约》的缔约国。尽管《生物武器公约》意义重大，而且临近《公约》生效40周年，但令人惊讶的是，关于《生物武器公约》起源的学术研究很少，更不用说该条约是如何在其更广泛的政治和社会背景下形成的。或许更值得注意的是，大多数关于冷战的学术研究都忽视了《生物武器公约》。这项研究旨在利用广泛的档案和口头资料，超越对武器条约谈判的技术细节的详细描述，而是对该条约的诞生提供深入的历史描述。《生物武器公约》的历史根源与冷战和其他更广泛的关切密切相关，特别是：英美关系；核武器和化学武器政策；对美国在越南使用化学制剂的不同态度；1925年《日内瓦议定书》的不同义务和解释；以及专家在塑造事件方面的复杂作用，包括科学和社会科学、个人和集体、民事和军事。在这方面：1.现有的账目提供了充分的概述，但在描述和分析方面仍然存在严重差距。我们对《生物武器公约》的讨论基础、谈判时期或直至1975年《生物武器公约》生效的时期，只有很少的描述。尚未探讨对《生物武器公约》许多潜在的重要直接和间接影响。例如，《核不扩散条约》的谈判者与《生物武器公约》的谈判者相同；1967年在越南使用催泪瓦斯和在也门使用毒气对条约谈判的全面影响仍未得到探讨。3.对《生物武器公约》的现有描述只是对以下方面的提示：Pugwash和伯纳尔和平图书馆等非政府组织的影响；国际关系学者赫德利·布尔(Hedley Bull)等个人的想法；以及索利·扎克曼爵士等科学家顾问的行动。通过解决上述差距和研究问题，我们建议，主要基于英国和美国来源的更全面的历史描述将远远不止为现有分析增加一层描述。总之，我们的研究将寻求将《生物武器公约》写入关于冷战，特别是缓和时期的历史写作中，这一研究将对学术历史学家、政治学家和社会学家具有价值。该项目将在更丰富的历史背景下制定消除冲突(包括大规模毁灭性武器)的方法，从而对AHRC/RCUK全球不确定因素方案的使命作出重大贡献。通过一系列公共活动，我们打算表明这项研究将如何与学术界以外的用户相关，特别是那些关心制定有效政策办法以应对生物武器威胁的人，如公务员、安全界、政策制定者、非政府组织工作人员和活动家。

Outlawing an entire class of weapons is a major step towards creating a safer world. Forty years ago, on 10 April 1972, the first ever such step was taken as the nations of the world were invited to sign up to the new Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). This treaty, which had been several years in the making, sought to ban biological weapons, or more colloquially germ warfare. As such, it was remarkable for attempting not simply biological arms limitation but full disarmament. Three years later the treaty entered into force, in other words its provisions now had full legal effect. Currently, and despite all kinds of set-backs, 165 nations are states parties to the BWC.Despite its significance, and close to the fortieth anniversary of its entry into force, there is surprisingly little scholarly research on the origins of the BWC, still less on how this treaty was shaped by its broader political and social context. Perhaps more remarkably, most scholarship on the Cold War ignores the BWC. This research aims to draw on a wide range of archival and oral sources to go beyond a blow-by-blow account of the technicalities of arms treaty negotiation, and instead provide a deep historical account of the birth of the treaty.The historical roots of the BWC are intimately bound up with the Cold War and other wider concerns, particularly: Anglo-American relationships; nuclear and chemical weapons policy; varying attitudes to US chemical agent use in Vietnam; the different obligations and interpretations of the 1925 Geneva Protocol; and the complex roles of experts, both scientific and social scientific, individual and collective, civil and military, in shaping events. In this respect: 1. Existing accounts give an adequate overview, but there remain crucial gaps in description and analysis. We have but a scant account of the foundations of discussion about the BWC, the negotiation period, or the period until the BWC's 1975 entry into force.2. Many potentially important direct and indirect influences on the BWC have not been explored. For example, the negotiators of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty were the same as for the BWC; the full influence on treaty negotiations of uses of tear gas in Vietnam and poison gas in Yemen 1967 remains unexplored. 3. Existing accounts of the BWC are only suggestive about: the influence of non-governmental groups such as Pugwash and the Bernal Peace Library; the thinking of individuals such as Hedley Bull, the international relations scholar, turned director of the Arms Control Disarmament Research Unit of the Foreign Office; and the actions of scientist-advisers such as Sir Solly Zuckermann.By addressing the gaps and research problems outlined above, we suggest that a more thorough historical account based primarily on UK and US sources will contribute far more than added layers of description to existing analysis. In short, our study will seek to write the BWC into the historical writing about the Cold War and, in particular, the period of detente.The research will be of value to academic historians, political scientists and sociologists. This project will make a significant contribution to the mission of the AHRC/RCUK Global Uncertainties Programme by setting approaches to removing conflict (including weapons of mass destruction) in a richer historical context. Through a series of public events, we intend to demonstrate how this research will be relevant to users outside the academic community, particularly those concerned with the development of effective policy approaches to the threat posed by biological weapons such as civil servants, the security community, policy-makers, NGO workers and campaigners.