{"id":76026,"date":"2025-12-02T12:41:02","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T07:11:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=76026"},"modified":"2025-12-02T15:38:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T10:08:11","slug":"biological-weapons-convention-bwc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/biological-weapons-convention-bwc\/","title":{"rendered":"Biological Weapons Convention (BWC)"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Biological Weapons Convention Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The External Affairs Minister recently called for urgent reforms to strengthen global biosecurity and modernise the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), warning that biological threats are becoming harder to manage in a rapidly evolving scientific landscape.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Biological Weapons Convention\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is a <\/span><b>legally binding international treaty<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that <\/span><b>bans the use of biological and toxin weapon<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">s and <\/span><b>prohibits all development,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> production, acquisition, <\/span><b>stockpiling, or transfer <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">of such weapons.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The treaty a<\/span><b>lso bans any equipment<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> or <\/span><b>means of delivery <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">that is<\/span><b> designed to use biological agents<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> or toxins for hostile purposes or armed conflict.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It<\/span><b> requires signatories to destroy biological weapons<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, agents, and production facilities within nine months of the treaty\u2019s entry into force.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It opened for signature on 10 April 1972 and <\/span><b>entered into force<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> on 26 March <\/span><b>1975<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was the <\/span><b>first multilateral treaty categorically banning a class of weapon.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Membership<\/strong>:\u00a0<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It currently has <\/span><b>187 states-parties, including Palestine<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and<\/span><b> four signatories<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (Egypt, Haiti, Somalia, and Syria).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><b>Ten states have neither signed nor ratified<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the BWC (C<\/span><b>had, Comoros, Djibouti, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Eritrea, <\/span><b>Israel<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, Kiribati, Micronesia, Namibia, <\/span><b>South Sudan<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and Tuvalu).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><b>India signed and ratified <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the BWC in <\/span><b>1974<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The convention stipulates that <\/span><b>states shall cooperate bilaterally or multilaterally to solve compliance issues.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">S<\/span><b>tates may also submit complaints to the<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/what-is-the-united-nations-security-council\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong> United Nations Security Council<\/strong><\/a> (<\/span><b>UNSC<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">) should they believe another state is violating the treaty.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, there is<\/span><b> no implementation body<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of the BWC, allowing for blatant violations.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There is a <\/span><b>review conference every five years<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to review the convention\u2019s implementation, and establish confidence-building measures.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>What Are Biological Weapons?<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Biological weapons <\/span><b>disseminate disease-causing organisms or toxins <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">to harm or kill humans, animals, or plants.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They generally consist of <\/span><b>two parts \u2013 a weaponized agent<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and a <\/span><b>delivery mechanism.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Almost any disease-causing organism (such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, prions, or rickettsiae) or toxin (poisons derived from animals, plants, or microorganisms, or similar substances produced synthetically) can be used in biological weapons.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/ddnews.gov.in\/en\/eam-jaishankar-warns-of-rising-bioterrorism-threat-calls-for-stronger-global-biosecurity-framework-at-bwcs-50th-anniversary-conference\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">DDN<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) is a legally binding international treaty that bans the use of biological and toxin weapons which entered into force on 26 March 1975. Read more about Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), Aim, Membership, Latest News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":76063,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3989,21,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-76026","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-biological-weapons-convention","9":"tag-prelims-pointers","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}