Contents
Major armed conflicts
Armed conflict prevention, management and resolution
The Middle East peace process
Russia: conflicts and peaceful settlement of disputes
Europe: the transition to inclusive security
Military expenditure and arms production
Military research and development
Transfers of major conventional weapons
Multilateral security-related export controls
Nuclear arms control
Chemical and biological weapon developments and arms control
Conventional arms control
The ban on anti-personnel mines
Arms control and disarmament agreements
Chronology 1997

11. Chemical and biological weapon developments and arms control*
Jean Pascal Zanders and John Hart

* Chapter summary from the SIPRI Yearbook 1998: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).

The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) entered into force on 29 April 1997. Progress in the negotiations on a verification protocol to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) was modest. Despite efforts to establish or strengthen disarmament regimes for chemical and biological weapons, concerns about their proliferation or use increased through the year. Cuba formally accused the United States of waging biological warfare and initiated a procedure to investigate this type of allegation - the first time this has occurred since the BTWC entered into force in 1975. Measures to counter proliferation increased in Western countries. In Iraq, the crisis between the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) and Baghdad escalated to the point that military intervention became a serious possibility.

Appendix 11A, by Robert J. Mathews, presents the developments of 1997 after entry into force of the Chemical Weapons Convention.

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