Between 17 and 21 August, the State Parties to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) met in Geneva for the ninth session of the Working Group on the Strengthening of the BTWC. For the Pugwash Chemical and Biological Weapons (CBW) Programme, it was the first return to a chemical or biological weapons convention meeting in a decade. Pugwash distributed its first Briefing Note at the gathering.
In the medium term, the work of the CBW Programme will give governments, diplomats, and policymakers a deeper understanding of the key challenges and threats to the CWC and BTWC regimes and help build greater awareness of, and anticipation of, emerging CBW risks.
Longer-term Pugwash work will strengthen CWC and BTWC norms and compliance at a time when international cooperation is weakening. Overall, it seeks to reduce the risks of the development, production, proliferation, and use of chemical and biological weapons across different security contexts.
In 2027, State Parties will convene the Tenth Review Conference of the BTWC and weigh the recommendations of the current Working Group, which will complete its work in December 2026. Under the header Vision 2030 and Beyond, the Pugwash Briefing Note sets out three pillars of a regime equal to the task of reinforcing the treaty: an institutional setup, a verification regime and a science and technology (S&T) review capacity. It treats these as three expressions of the essential requirement to keep the prohibition relevant over the decades ahead.
The Pugwash Briefing Note was prepared by Maria Espona (ARG), Animesh Roul (IND), Miranda Smith (USA), Lizeka Tandwa (RSA) and Jean Pascal Zanders (BEL).