LONDON, Jan. 19 (UPI) -- The United Kingdom's Royal Society called Monday for a scientific body to verify the international treaty banning biological weapons.
The society, the British equivalent of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, said the 1975 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention is badly weakened by its lack of a mechanism to check on whether the agreement's signatories actually comply with it, the BBC reported. Governments should establish a body like the International Atomic Energy Agency to support the treaty, the society said in a statement.
The IAEA's scientific program underpins decisions taken within the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and helps to achieve its objectives. Likewise, "the chemical weapons convention is strengthened by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons," the statement continued.
"The absence of a formal scientific advisory panel is a major constraint to developing a more effective Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention," said Julia Higgins, the society's foreign secretary. She added, however, that the laboratories and installations linked to bioweapons production are more diffuse and difficult to monitor than those involved in nuclear weapons.
