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Treaty Issues in Depth
BWC Sixth Review Conference

Last December, the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction, more commonly known as the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), held its Sixth Review Conference (RevCon) in Geneva. The three week meeting ran from November 20 to December 8, 2006, and was considered to be a moderately successful RevCon. The States Parties reached consensus on a number of key issues. These included: a new intersessional work program; creating an implementation support unit; promoting confidence building measures (CBMs), and promoting universalization of the Convention.

After agreeing that the 2003-2005 intersessional work program had been beneficial, the States Parties agreed to a new intersessional work program for 2007-2010. The new intersessional work program will include four annual one week meetings of experts and meetings of States Parties. The topics to be covered each year are the following:

• 2007: National implementation and regional cooperation on implementation;
• 2008: Biosafety and biosecurity, and codes of conduct;
• 2009: Capacity building in disease surveillance; and
• 2010: Assistance and coordination on cases of alleged use of biological or toxin weapons.