Alexander Kelle
Queen's University Belfast
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Archive | 2012
Alexander Kelle; Kathryn Nixdorff; Malcolm Dando
Preventing a Biochemical Arms Race responds to a growing concern that changes in the life sciences and the nature of warfare could lead to a resurgent interest in chemical and biological weapons (CBW) capabilities. By bringing together a wide range of historical material and current literature in the field of CBW arms control, the book reveals how these two disparate fields might be integrated to precipitate a biochemical arms race among major powers, rogue states, or even non-state actors. It seeks to raise awareness among policy practitioners, the academic community, and the media that such an arms race may be looming if developments are left unattended, and to provide policy options on how it-and its devastating consequences-could be avoided. After identifying weaknesses in the international regime structures revolving around the Biological Weapons and Chemical Weapons Conventions, it provides policy proposals to deal with gaps and shortcomings in each prohibition regime individually, and then addresses the widening gap between them.
Archive | 2001
Alexander Kelle; Malcolm Dando; Kathryn Nixdorff
Acknowledgements. Introduction. Biotechnology in Countering Biological and Toxin Weapons: An Overview A. Kelle, M.R. Dando, K. Nixdorff, G.S. Pearson. Section I: Political and Economic Dimensions of Countering BTW Agents and Strengthening the BTW Control Regime. Dealing With a Headache: Three Scenarios and Two Dilemmas H. Muller. Countering Biological Warfare: An Overview G.S. Pearson. Lessons of the Chemical Weapons Convention for the BTWC Protocol A. Kelle, J. Matousek. Biotechnology and the Strengthening of the BTWC: The View from West European Industry R. van Sloten. Strengthening the BTWC through R&D Restructuring: The case of the State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology `VECTOR L.S. Sandakhchiev, S.V. Netesov. Dissolution of the Sovjet Union, Introduction of a Market Economy and the Future BTWC Compliance Protocol: Impact on the Russian Biotechnology Industry J. Compton. Section II: Biotechnology in BTW Agent Detection: Underlying Technologies. The Potential of Different Biotechnology Methods in BTW Agent Detection. Antibody Based Methods P. Sveshnikov. The Potential of Different Biotechnology Methods in BTW Agent Detection. DNA Methods: Gene Probes D. Leslie. The Role of Biotechnology in BTW Agent Detection. DNA Methods: Polymerase Chain Reaction K. Nixdorff, A.G. Prilipov. Detection of Biological Agents and Biosensor Design J.J. Valdes, J.P. Chambers. Section III: Biotechnology and BTW Agent Detection in Different Environments. Detecting BTW Agents on the Battlefield H. Garrigue. Detecting Biological Terrorism. Evaluating the Technologies G. Eifried. Detecting Biological and Toxin Weapon Agents in an Inspection Environment G.S. Pearson. Section IV: The Role of Biotechnology in the Pre-Exposure Treatment of BTW Agents. Possibilities and Limitations of Vaccination K. Nixdorff. The Development of an Oral Vaccine Against Anthrax N.D. Zegers, et al. Vaccine Production J. Melling. Section V: The Role of Biotechnology in Diagnosis and Identification of BTW Agents. The Role of Biotechnology in Protection against BTW Agents -- Overview from a Medical Point of View and Identification of the Symptoms G. Berensci, G. Faludi. Medical Countermeasures to Biological Warfare Agents D.R. Franz. Section VI: The Role of Biotechnology in Protection Against BTW Agents: Post-Exposure Treatment. Treatment of Mass Casualties under Worst Case Assumptions S.-A. Persson. The Post Exposure Prophylactic Measures Against Viral BTW Agents S.V. Netesov. Search of Biotechnology-based Decontaminants for C/BW Agents R. Dierstein, H.-U. Glaeser, A. Richardt. Section VII: The Impact of Biotechnology on Politico-Military and Normative Efforts to Counter BTW Agents. Biotechnology and Politico-Military Responses to BTW Agents M.R. Dando. Biotechnology and the Development of Norms Against BTW Agents A. Kelle. Index.
Archive | 2006
Alexander Kelle; Kathryn Nixdorff; Malcolm Dando
Concerns about biological weapons and biological terrorism have increased over the last decade and, particularly since the events of 11 September 2001 in the United States. There has been a growing belief that large-scale biological weapons attacks are becoming more likely.1 The medical profession has been amongst those groups which have devoted more and more attention to what might need to be done in the event of an attack.
Archive | 2006
Alexander Kelle; Kathryn Nixdorff; Malcolm Dando
This chapter will analyse the chemical weapons (CW) prohibition regime with a view to the impact that technological characteristics of and developments related to toxic chemicals as well as developments concerning chemical processes have on the control efforts by states parties to the regime. The analysis starts from the hypothesis that recent developments in modern biotechnology, especially the utilization of combinatorial chemistry in for example the pharmaceutical industries of developed countries pose a risk to the international regime set up for prohibiting chemical warfare agents. In order to prevent the CW prohibition regime from being undermined by these — and other — recent developments, a rethinking is needed of the interrelation between the scientific and technological basis of the issue area and the political-legal regime structure brought in place to control the dangers emanating from known chemical warfare agents and other toxic chemicals and biochemicals that could be misused for warfare or terrorist attacks.
Archive | 2006
Alexander Kelle; Kathryn Nixdorff; Malcolm Dando
The immune system plays a crucial role in protecting against infectious diseases. This is clearly demonstrated in the case of individuals with genetic defects in certain immune mechanisms, which frequently result in a devastating outcome, despite the use of antibiotics or other chemotherapeutic agents. Furthermore, some microorganisms can escape immune defences by using strategies that subvert immune mechanisms. These strategies represent factors that contribute critically to the pathogenicity of the microorganism, or its ability to cause disease. Indeed, the pathogenicity of a microorganism can only rightly be defined within the scope of its interaction with the immune system.
Archive | 2006
Alexander Kelle; Kathryn Nixdorff; Malcolm Dando
The evidence from the life science laboratories is quite clear: there is going to be an increasing risk that new discoveries will facilitate both state-level offensive biological weapons programmes and sub-state (terrorist) development of biological weapons. For over a decade it has been clear that only a wide-ranging integrated web of policies will be adequate to prevent this misuse of our new scientific and technological capabilities taking place. The web of deterrence1 or web of prevention consists, at the very least, of: ncomprehensive, verifiable, global CB arms control to create a risk of detection and a climate of political unacceptability for CB weapons; n nbroad export monitoring and controls to make it difficult and expensive for a proliferator to obtain necessary materials; n neffective CB defensive and protective measures to reduce the military utility of CB weapons; and n na range of determined and effective national and international responses to CB acquisition and/or use.2
Archive | 2006
Alexander Kelle; Kathryn Nixdorff; Malcolm Dando
The biological weapons (BW) prohibition regime is built around the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC), the 1925 Geneva Protocol, and the Australia Group, which expanded its activities from CW-related dual-use goods and technologies into the BW realm in 1990.
Archive | 2006
Alexander Kelle; Kathryn Nixdorff; Malcolm Dando
Only in the last few centuries has the link between the brain and behaviour become clear, and only at the end of the nineteenth century was it demonstrated that the nervous system was made up of billions of separate nerve cells or neurons. We now know that during evolution complex networks of such neurons have developed in order to effect certain behaviours. Whilst the neurons of the central, peripheral and autonomic nervous systems vary enormously in form and function, they can be classed into three broad groups: sensory neurons which convey information into the central nervous system; effector neurons which carry information out of the central nervous system to muscles and other effector organs; and interneurons within the central nervous system which link the sensory and effector neurons and also have links with one another.
Archive | 2006
Alexander Kelle; Kathryn Nixdorff; Malcolm Dando
Multilateral prohibition regimes are more than the legal texts — the BWC and the CWC in our area of concern — on which they are based. In addition to this legal dimension, the concept of ‘international regimes’ captures the political dimension of states acting on their own (on the domestic level) and interacting with one another (on the international level) in the implementation of these legal arrangements. As states participate in international regimes out of their own free will there is an expectation that they will strive to comply with the stipulations of the regime. In addition, as these regimes are often created to overcome collective action problems, i.e. situations in which individual state action to address a problem would yield sub-optimal results, states participating in a regime can be expected to have an interest in adapting a regime when the character of the underlying problem, which led to the regime’s creation in the first place, changes.
International Studies Review | 2007
Radoslav S. Dimitrov; Detlef F. Sprinz; Gerald M. DiGiusto; Alexander Kelle