- Hillary
Rodham Clinton, Secretary of State of the United States of America,
speaks during the Seventh Review Conference of the Convention on the
Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of
Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons, at the European
headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Wednesday
Dec. 7, 2011. (AP Photo/Martial TrezziniPool)
Remarks at the 7th Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention Review Conference
Remarks
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
Palais des Nations
Geneva, Switzerland
December 7, 2011
Thank
you, Mr. President. And I would also like to express my appreciation to
all of the delegates and to my colleague, Minister Rosenthal, for his
comments. I want to thank the Implementation Support Unit for all the
efforts to advance the work here.
I want to start by acknowledging
that our countries have accomplished a great deal together under the
Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. One hundred sixty-five states
have now committed not to pursue these weapons, and I am delighted to
welcome Burundi and Mozambique to the Convention, and I join in urging
all states who have not yet done so to join.
President Obama has
made it a top goal of his Administration to halt the spread of weapons
of mass destruction, because we view the risk of a bioweapons attack as
both a serious national security challenge and a foreign policy
priority. In an age when people and diseases cross borders with growing
ease, bioweapons are a transnational threat, and therefore we must
protect against them with transnational action.
The nature of the
problem is evolving. The advances in science and technology make it
possible to both prevent and cure more diseases, but also easier for
states and non-state actors to develop biological weapons. A crude, but
effective, terrorist weapon can be made by using a small sample of any
number of widely available pathogens, inexpensive equipment, and
college-level chemistry and biology. Even as it becomes easier to
develop these weapons, it remains extremely difficult – as you know – to
detect them, because almost any biological research can serve dual
purposes. The same equipment and technical knowledge used for legitimate
research to save lives can also be used to manufacture deadly diseases.
So
of course, we must continue our work to prevent states from acquiring
biological weapons. And one of the unsung successes of the Convention is
that it has engrained a norm among states against biological weapons.
Even countries that have never joined the Convention no longer claim
that acquiring such weapons is a legitimate goal. But unfortunately, the
ability of terrorists and other non-state actors to develop and use
these weapons is growing. And therefore, this must be a renewed focus of
our efforts during the next 14 days, as well as the months and years
ahead.
Now, I know there are some in the international community
who have their doubts about the odds of a mass biological attack or
major outbreak. They point out that we have not seen either so far, and
conclude the risk must be low. But that is not the conclusion of the
United States, because there are warning signs, and they are too serious
to ignore.
Terrorist groups have made it known they would want to
acquire and use these weapons. And in the 1990s, the apocalyptic cult,
Aum Shinrikyo unleashed two attacks in Tokyo by spraying a liquid
containing anthrax spores into the air and unleashing sarin gas into the
subway. In 2001, we found evidence in Afghanistan that al-Qaida was
seeking the ability to conduct bioweapons attacks. And less than a year
ago, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula made a call to arms for – and I
quote – “brothers with degrees in microbiology or chemistry to develop a
weapon of mass destruction.”
We all have an interest in ramping
up our efforts to prevent outbreaks and attacks and then to be prepared
to respond if they do occur. The 2001 anthrax attacks in the United
States killed five people and sickened 17. More than 10,000 were
required to go on to antibiotics. A mass outbreak could cripple an
already fragile global economy by cutting off the movement of people,
goods, and sparking food shortages. And of course, a victim of an attack
could just as easily travel from one country to another.
So
shoring up our domestic and international defenses will make it easier
to detect and respond. We need public health systems that can quickly
diagnose outbreaks, whatever their source, and mobilize the right
medical resources and personnel. By making any one country more secure,
we make the international community more secure at the same time.
Two
years ago, the Obama Administration released our national strategy for
countering biological threats, which is a whole-of-government approach
designed to protect the American people and improve our global capacity.
We support our partners’ efforts to meet new international standards in
disease preparedness, detection, and response. We are helping make
laboratories safer and more secure, engaging 44 countries in these
efforts this year. And since 2007, we’ve conducted more than a dozen
workshops to help train public health and law enforcement officials.
But
there is still more to do, and I want to briefly mention three areas.
First, we need to bolster international confidence that all countries
are living up to our obligations under the Convention. It is not
possible, in our opinion, to create a verification regime that will
achieve this goal. But we must take other steps. To begin with, we
should revise the Convention’s annual reporting systems to ensure that
each party is answering the right questions, such as what we are each
all doing to guard against the misuse of biological materials.
Countries
should also take their own measures to demonstrate transparency. Under
our new Bio-Transparency and Openness Initiative, we will host an
international forum on health and security to exchange views on
biological threats and discuss the evolution of U.S. bioresearch
programs. We will underscore that commitment by inviting a few state
parties to the Convention to tour a U.S. biodefense facility next year,
as Ambassador van den IJssel and the UN 1540 Committee did this past
summer. And we will promote dialogue through exchanges among scientists
from the United States and elsewhere. In short, we are intending and our
meeting our obligation to the full letter and spirit of the treaty, and
we wish to work with other nations to do so as well.
Second, we
must strengthen each country’s ability to detect and respond to
outbreaks and improve international coordination. As President Obama
said earlier this year at the UN, “We must come together to prevent and
detect and fight every kind of biological danger, whether it’s a
pandemic like H1N1, or a terrorist threat, or a terrible disease.” Five
years ago, 194 countries came together at the World Health Organization
and committed to build our core capacities by June 2012, and we should
redouble our efforts to meet that goal. We will support the WHO in this
area, and I urge others to join us.
Finally, we need thoughtful
international dialogue about the ways to maximize the benefits of
scientific research and minimize the risks. For example, the emerging
gene synthesis industry is making genetic material widely available.
This obviously has many benefits for research, but it could also
potentially be used to assemble the components of a deadly organism. So
how do we balance the need for scientific freedom and innovation with
the necessity of guarding against such risks?
There is no easy
answer, but it begins with open conversations among governments, the
scientific community, and other stakeholders, in this forum and
elsewhere. We have recently had our U.S. President’s Commission on
Bioethics develop ethical principles that could be helpful in this
dialogue, and we urge a discussion about them. Ambassador Kennedy and
the U.S. team look forward to working with all of you for a strong set
of recommendations.
And let me conclude by saying we know the
biological threats we face today are new, but our commitment to face
threats together is not. More than 85 years ago, after the horrors of
World War I, the international community took a stand against the use of
poison gases and bacteriological weapons. And nearly a half-century
later, that shared commitment brought us together to adopt the
Biological Weapons Convention. So in that same spirit, let us move
forward to address the challenges we face together in the 21st century.
Thank you very much.
