Fighting Terrorism through Disarmament

It is hard to imagine how the tragedy of 11 September could have been worse. Yet, the truth is, as Secretary-General Kofi Annan explained in his address to the General Assembly debate on measures to combat international terrorism, "… a single attack involving a nuclear or biological weapon could have killed millions. And, he added, "there is much that we can do to help prevent future terrorist acts carried out with weapons of mass destruction."

The United Nations defines nuclear, chemical and biological weapons as weapons of mass destruction. It has been seeking to prevent the nightmare scenario of such weapons falling into the hands of terrorists for many years, mainly by promoting multilateral disarmament agreements, which aim to reduce or even eliminate these weapons. The 11 September attacks have given new impetus to this effort.

At a recent symposium convened by the UN Department of Disarmament Affairs (DDA), experts were virtually unanimous in agreeing that the legal framework to prevent terrorists from acquiring nuclear, biological and chemical weapons exists. Under UN auspices, the international community has negotiated more than a dozen treaties and protocols, key among which are the Biological Weapons Convention, the Chemical Weapons Convention, and the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).

What remains to be done, as the experts explained, is to build a stronger commitment by all States to that framework.

Combating biological weapons:

Biological weapons are currently outlawed by the 1974 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction. But this treaty does not provide for any systemic means of verifying compliance with that ban.

Experts have been meeting to work on a legally binding protocol, that would provide for such powers, since 1994. Hungary's Tibor Tóth has led those negotiations in recent years. The current anthrax attacks in the United States have made the world aware that biological weapons are horribly real, not just science fiction. Yet these attacks are just the "tip of the iceberg" in terms of the potential deadly power of bio-terror, Mr. Tóth told the DDA symposium.

That Convention is about to be reviewed again. It was last reviewed in 1996, when the parties acknowledged that they needed to ensure their obligations under the Convention were met in order to prevent use of biological and toxin weapons for terrorist or criminal activity. The next review, which takes place under Ambassador Tóth's chairmanship in mid-November, is the fifth such review.

The need to bring all States into the Convention is critically important, according to Ambassador Tóth, because groups that might use biological weapons for terror must be based somewhere, and the prohibitions in the Convention should apply wherever terrorists make their bases. The treaty currently has 144 States parties.

Eliminating chemical weapons

Chemical weapons have also been used by terrorists. In 1995, for example, the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo released the deadly nerve gas Sarin in the Tokyo subway system, killing 12 people. At the time, the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) concluded that without the prompt and massive emergency response effort launched by the Japanese authorities, and some fortunate mistakes by the terrorist group, the incident could have been much more devastating.

Chemical weapons are a 'weapon of choice' of terrorists, according to the OPCW's Mikhail Berdennikov, because they are small but deadly, they require immediate responses from authorities, and there are no antibiotics to treat the ailments they cause. And, if "properly" used, they need not harm the terrorist.

The OPCW was set up to monitor the Chemical Weapons Convention. It tracks materials which terrorists can use to make chemical weapons, and ensures that such materials are not diverted from legitimate to prohibited purposes.

That treaty provides for verification, through a regime of inspections to be carried out by OPCW experts. That regime includes what Berdennikov describes as "the most powerful instrument that has ever been placed in any multilateral disarmament treaty -- challenge inspections."

Under the challenge inspection provisions, any State that is a party to the treaty can ask the OPCW to inspect any facility or site in any other State party. These inspections are undertaken with only 12-hours notice.

And the Convention doesn't just prohibit the use of chemical weapons by States, it also makes it unlawful for individuals from States parties to engage in acts that violate the treaty's provisions. As a consequence, the Convention stands as a central legal pillar in the international effort to fight chemical terrorism.

The OPCW is also charged, under the Convention, with ensuring that all existing chemical weapons are destroyed, and -- thanks to the Convention -- thousands of dangerous arsenals have already been eliminated. States parties must not have any chemical weapons capacity.

The organization also maintains stocks of equipment for use in the event of an attack, such as gas masks, protective gear, mobile laboratories and decontamination units, though sufficient funds to ensure that equipment can be rapidly moved to anywhere it may be needed are still being sought.

Securing nuclear material

While terrorists have never used nuclear weapons, there are reports that some terrorist groups, including Usuma bin Laden's al-Qaeda, have tried to acquire nuclear material.

"The willingness of terrorists to commit suicide to achieve their evil aims makes the nuclear terrorism threat far more likely than it was before September 11," the Director-General of the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, told an expert symposium convened by the Agency on 2 November.

The IAEA helps countries prevent, intercept and respond to nuclear safety and security incidents.

According to the IAEA, since 1993, there have been 175 cases of trafficking in nuclear material and 201 cases of trafficking in medical and industrial radioactive sources, but only 18 of those incidents involved small amounts of highly enriched uranium or plutonium, the material needed to produce a nuclear bomb.

IAEA experts judge that these quantities involved are still insufficient to allow someone to construct a nuclear bomb. "However, that any such materials are being traded illicitly and could conceivably be accessible to terrorist groups is deeply troubling," Mr. ElBaradei said.

There is only one international response system in place that could react immediately to the radiological emergency that would be caused if terrorists ever launched a nuclear attack -- the Emergency Response Centre established and maintained by the IAEA.

The IAEA is proposing a number of new initiatives, including strengthening border monitoring and bolstering the Emergency Response Centre's ability to react to radiological emergencies following a terrorist attack.

"September 11 presented us with a clear and present danger -- a global threat that requires global action," said Mr. ElBaradei. "We now have to actively reinforce safeguards, expand our systems for combating smuggling in nuclear material and upgrade our safety and security services."

The Agency estimates that $30-$50 million annually will be needed in the short-term to fortify its global anti-nuclear-terrorism effort.

A set of rules and responsibilities for the security of nuclear material also forms a part of the UN's action to ensure nuclear materials do not fall into the wrong hands. These are defined in the Convention of Physical Protection of Nuclear Materials, which currently has 69 States party.

Disarmament -- the big picture

There is one fundamental solution to the question of how to avoid the dangers of biological, nuclear and chemical weapons -- and that is multilateral disarmament, Jayantha Dhanapala, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament, explained.

"Increasing the number and sophistication of weapons and expensive defence systems will not protect us from terrorism," he explained. "Weapon-based security not only perpetuates a flawed value system but it also increases the number of weapons, and therefore the danger of their diversion to warlords and others -- with calamitous consequences."

Reducing and even eliminating countries' arsenals of the most deadly arms will frustrate terrorists, he added, and create a more secure world. "We must make greater progress towards disarmament and non-proliferation. That progress will contribute a safer and better world -- one in which terrorism cannot breed and flourish," he said.