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THE HARVARD SUSSEX PROGRAM ON CBW ARMAMENT AND ARMS LIMITATION |
This study group is the latest in a succession of such groups to have been convened under the auspices of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs to study aspects of chemical/biological-warfare (CBW) disarmament. Its membership includes academic, defence and industrial scientists from around the world as well as governmental officials involved in the formation and implementation of public policy regarding CBW. The interest which these participants have in common is the creation and effective operation of an international regime for eliminating CBW weapons.
The series originates in the 5th Pugwash Conference, held in Pugwash, Nova Scotia, Canada, during 24-29 August 1959. This was the first occasion since the onset of the Cold War during which scientists knowledgeable in fields from which CBW weapons derive participated in international conference, coming from both East and West to consider and discuss CBW.
From the conference and its follow-up activities emerged the Pugwash BW Study Group (1964-69), from which in turn emerged the initial CBW project (1966-75) of SIPRI, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Then came the work, extending throughout the period from conclusion of the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention to the opening for signature of the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention, of the Pugwash CW Study Group. The present CBW study-group was established immediately thereafter, seeking to promote both a strengthening of the Biological Weapons Convention and a harmonious and effective entry into force of the Chemical Weapons Convention. Over the years some 700 people from nearly 50 countries have participated in these groups. A detailed account of Pugwash work on CBW is to be found in volume 866 (1998) of the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, at pages 224-52.
Nowadays the Study Group is directed by HSP through a steering committee and the good offices of the Pugwash international secretariat. Two-day workshops are its main activity. There are usually two of these each year, hosted by the national Pugwash groups of the Netherlands and Switzerland.
Each workshop is on a particular subject, chosen for its topicality and for the benefit that could result from study-group attention to it. The Secretary-General of Pugwash, advised by the steering committee, invites the participation of individuals who have experience in that subject. There are typically 30-70 participants from maybe half that number of countries. Participants thereby become members of the study group, if they are not members already. The proceedings are private, and, as a further means for stimulating frank discussion, the ground-rules preclude subsequent attribution of what is said during a workshop to the participant who said it.
An account of each workshop, setting out not a consensus summary but simply the personal impressions of a participant, is subsequently produced by HSP. These reports are later published in Pugwash Newsletter and, for a wider readership, on this website.
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