Context
US officials have warned that North Korea has been developing ‘poison pens’ and sprays as a part of their biological weapon (BW) programme.
About North Korea’s Biological Weapons Programme
- Biological Weapon (BW) program: The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has a dedicated, national-level offensive BW program with capability to:
CRISPR:
- It stands for Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats.
- CRISPR is a gene editing technology that allows scientists to precisely modify DNA within living organisms.
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- Produce biological agents for military purposes
- Weaponizing Biological Weapon agents with unconventional systems such as sprayers and poison pen injection devices.
- Genetically engineer biological products with technologies such as CRISPR.
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What are Biological Weapons (BW)?
- About: BW are used to release disease causing organisms or toxins and to harm and kill humans, animals, and trees.
- Weaponized Agents: Almost any disease-causing organism (such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, prions or rickettsiae) or toxin (poisons derived from animals, plants or microorganisms, or similar substances produced synthetically) can be used in BW.
- Agents such as anthrax can be used to cause widespread disease leading to large scale deaths.
Biological Weapons and International Laws
Geneva Protocol (1925): It banned the use of asphyxiating, poisonous, or other gases, usually referred to as chemical weapons, as well as the use of bacteriological methods of warfare.
Biological Weapons Convention (1975): It is also known as Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and their Destruction.
- It is a legally binding multilateral disarmament treaty banning an entire category of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).
- Genesis: The Convention entered into force on 26 March 1975.
- The BWC supplements the 1925 Geneva Protocol, which prohibited only the use of biological weapons.
- Mandate: The BWC effectively prohibits the development, production, acquisition, transfer, stockpiling and use of biological and toxin weapons.
- Signatories: India ratified the treaty on July 15, 1974.
- Ten states have neither signed nor ratified the BWC (Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Israel, Kiribati, Micronesia, Namibia, South Sudan and Tuvalu).
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