Welcome to the BWPP BioWeapons Monitor 2.0

The monitor is a follow –up to the previous format of the BWPP’s BioWeapons monitor. Five issues, covering the years 2010-2014 were published as country studies in a classical format. The new format is a database containing information with relevance for the implementation of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC), including the obligation for peaceful technical cooperation under article X. Users can search the information en gross or by applying analytical selectors. More than that, users are invited to contribute additional information to the monitor.

Note:

The monitor is completely based on open source information and follows the rules of moderated access. Additional data will be thoroughly checked upon publication. By principle the information are not complete and will never be.
The information do represent facts and do by no means set an allegation!
The monitor includes little interpretation.
The monitor is not restricted to BWC membership, but contains information on Non-member states, too.

Users are cordially invited to contribute additional information. By sending an e-mail to info@biological-arms-control.org

We will provide you with an input mask!

Why this monitor?

Any agreement lives from transparency regarding the compliance behaviour of its partners. The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) exists with very limited mechanisms for the gathering of relevant information. A multilateral verification mechanism has failed in 2001, the annual information exchange under the confidence building measures is not used to a meaningful extent, and other means are only applicable as ad hoc instruments in cases of emergency. At the same time the rapid developments in the area of biotechnology make the environment for monitoring compliance more and more complex. Missing verification can by no means be compensated. This monitor aims to feeding the regime with a baseline of empirical data. The IT-revolution made the Big Data universe searchable for civil society monitors. This had already motivated five issues of the BWPP BioWeapons Monitor 2010-2014 (LINK). This database is a follow up to that format which was, in the end, dependent from single authors compiling annual country studies at fixed deadlines. The new format is open to (moderated) data entry by all interested stakeholders and will be updated at any time new information drop in.

The monitor structures Open Source Information (OSI) with relevance to the implementation of the BWC, including both the prohibitive (articles I and III) and the demanding (articles IV and X) norms of the treaty. Hence, it includes information about a broad variety of information as described above.

The monitor was programmed, is being maintained, and will be further developed by the Research Group for Biological Arms Control at Hamburg University. The Research Group is part of the Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker Centre for Science and Peace Research at Hamburg University (ZNF).

Work on this project was funded by the German Federal Foreign Office.