Arms control & disarmament projects

Survey of National Implementation Legislation
Researcher: Angela Woodward
Funder: John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, UK Global Opportunities Fund (GOF)

Recent project highlights

This work focuses on the obligation in Article 4 of the Biological Weapons Convention requiring states parties to ‘take any necessary measures’ to ensure that the treaty’s prohibitions, contained in Article 1, are enforced within their territory. This includes adopting national implementation legislation. For states without such legislation, the treaty’s effectiveness is weakened, both practically and symbolically. Under the agreed annual information exchanges (confidence-building measures) adopted in 1994, states parties are required to submit information on a range of implementation issues, including legislation adopted. However, the rate and quality of reporting is poor and reports are not scrutinised at treaty meetings. Crucially, they are are not available for public scrutiny.

VERTIC aims to:

• raise states parties’ awareness of their obligation to pass national implementation legislation
• identify which states have and have not adopted such legislation and to gather the relevant legislative texts
• undertake a comparative analysis of the legislation, identify strengths and weaknesses and make recommendations for best practice, and
• increase transparency by making such documentation and analysis publicly available.

VERTIC has surveyed all BWC states parties regarding the status of their national implementation legislation using a questionnaire in Arabic, English, French and Spanish. The results may be found in Time to lay down the law: national legislation to enforce the BWC, Final Report launched at the Biological Weapons Convention Meeting of States Parties, held in Geneva from 10-14 November 2003.

The above publications are available in portable document format (PDF) and require the installation of Adobe Reader 4.0 or higher. To download a free copy of the software visit the Adobe website.