Karen J. Winzoski, “Science, Industry & Arms Control: Preliminary Results.”
Draft Presented at ISA 2005, Honolulu, Hawaii
March 2005
Please do not cite without permission from the author
3
As its title suggests, this conference paper will present some preliminary results
from the ongoing research I am conducting for my doctoral dissertation. This study will
begin by laying out the problem I am investigating, and then describe the research
questions I am attempting to answer. It will briefly review the literature which has guided
my research, and highlight the three cases I am examining. This paper will review my
methodology, then conclude by presenting some of the interesting findings I have made
so far and reviewing the research I still have to complete. While this paper will present
the results of my research as of mid-February, in all likelihood I will have completed
more research by the time I present this paper in March 2005. Thus, in my presentation I
may share more of my findings than will appear in this draft of my paper.
1
An Apparent Anomaly
In December of 2001, the United States terminated negotiations over the
Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) as efforts to strengthen this treaty with the
addition of an intrusive verification protocol were nearing completion. Their stated
reasons for doing so were that the new protocol added “nothing new to [their] verification
capabilities,”
2
and that a verification regime “would have risked intellectual property
problems for [their] pharmaceutical and biotech industries”
3
Given the influence wielded
by the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers Association (PhRMA) and the
Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), few pundits were surprised by the outcome,
though many arms control experts decried the United States for compromising both
1
Thanks to Richard Price, Brian Job, Phil Orchard, Raul Pacheco, and Wade Huntley for comments on this
paper and earlier drafts of related papers. Thanks to UBC’s Centre for International Relations for travel
funding.
2
Graham S. Pearson, "The US Rejection of the Protocol at the Eleventh Hour Damages International
Security Against Biological Weapons," The CBW Conventions Bulletin, 53 (September 2001): 6.
3
Ibid., 6.
Convention