RONALD G. SUTHERLAND

Early in 1982, Mr Ronald Cleminson of the Canadian Department of External Affairs visited Saskatoon to meet with Dr Bruno Schiefer and myself. He was then Head of the Verification Research Unit and wished to discuss some problems with us. Bruno was a veterinary pathologist and I am an organic chemist. Bruno was Head of Toxicology and I was Associate Dean of Science. The problems we discussed were ‘Yellow Rain’ and chemical weapons; one involved the United Nations and the other the Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva. In other words, Mr Cleminson needed advice on chemical and biological weapons. Bruno was keener than I to be involved since the Yellow Rain case involved the alleged use of mycotoxins and, in particular, the T2 toxin, which was a serious problem in veterinary science. He could thus see specific utility in being involved, whereas the more general problem of chemical weapons was mainly of concern to diplomats at the CD. Mr Cleminson was skilled and persuasive, however, and pointed out that in this and many other problems governments themselves lack the skills or information needed to come to wise policy decisions.

We both agreed to do something, therefore: namely, to provide a detailed background document on chemical and biological weapons and to undertake work on mycotoxins—Bruno working in the laboratory while I reviewed the US-provided literature on Yellow Rain. This work led to a serious collaboration in providing background papers to the Canadian Delegation at the CD, and Bruno visited South-East Asia in an attempt to understand the Yellow Rain phenomena.

Bruno was convinced that Yellow Rain was a real threat and his research on the T2 toxin provided information that it could be a real biological threat. The US information was substantially weaker, in that there was no satisfactorily documented chain of custody on the samples that they cited, and my opinion was that the old Scottish verdict of ‘not proven’ was the only conclusion one could realistically draw.

I had planned to spend that summer with Professor Gérard Jaouen in Paris, and while in Europe I was invited to visit the Canadian CD Delegation for the Summer Session when the chemical weapons issue would be discussed (we couldn’t use the word ‘negotiations’). Canadian Ambassador Donald McPhail was to chair the discussions on chemical weapons. I soon discovered that the Canadian team was small and I had to fulfil a much more extensive role than I had anticipated. My work was successful, and from then on I spent my summers and some winters giving technical advice to the Canadian Delegation throughout the negotiations in Geneva. I continued to play a major role in this way throughout the Preparatory Commission for the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) at the Hague, and for the Canadian delegation to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) up to 2003.

The year 1983 saw the beginning of true multilateral negotiations at the CD. The Ad Hoc Group’s mandate on chemical weapons had not changed, but document CD/416, produced by Ambassador McPhail, obtained consensus and it in turn formed the basis of the so-called ‘rolling text’ of a chemical weapons convention prepared by Ambassador Rolf Ekéus of Sweden in 1984. This was followed by a draft text developed by the USA (in document CD/500), which included the imaginative concept of ‘open invitation inspection’—better known as ‘anytime, anywhere’ inspections. Eventually, Ambassador Ekéus developed document CD/539, which constituted a true negotiation mandate indicating the full scope of the CWC.

As a technical adviser to the Canadian Delegation, I developed good working relationships with many delegations, in particular with those of Australia, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. The Swedish Delegation, working at the time with the Neutral and Non-Aligned (NNA) Group, was a particularly valuable resource for the latter, which generally did not have Sweden’s depth of technical skills. Thus, Ambassador Ekéus and his team were the backbone of the NNA’s negotiating strength. I was able to form particularly strong relationships with Drs Johan S. Lundin and Annmari Lau (Sweden), Dr Marjatta Rautio (Finland) and Dr Bjørn Johnsen (Norway).

The years 1983–88 were filled for me with activities related to chemical weapons, especially negotiations in Geneva and regular visits to Ottawa and Washington, DC, together with the preparation of working papers and advice to the Department of External Affairs (now known as the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade). I also became heavily involved with Pugwash’s activities on chemical and biological weapons, and began discussions with Drs Thomas Stock and Ralf Trapp, who were then active in the German Democratic Republic. The year 1988–89 was seminal in that I paid my first visit to SIPRI at the invitation of Dr Lundin, during a sabbatical that also took me to Oslo and Helsinki. The activities I was involved in included the development of round-robin analytical experiments called the Nordic Trials, which were to form the basis of future activities on chemical weapons sample testing also involving Australia, Canada and the Netherlands. At SIPRI, Dr Stock and I edited a monograph entitled National Implementation of the Future Chemical Weapons Convention, and this was the beginning of an extensive collaboration for me with Dr Stock and later Mr Thomas Kurzidem of Frankfurt University.

Part of another sabbatical leave in 1994 was also spent at SIPRI with Dr Stock and Dr Adam Daniel Rotfeld as my hosts. The period 1993–96 was dominated by a research project on Effective Implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, funded by the German Volkswagen Foundation and managed by Dr Stock (SIPRI), Mr Kurzidem (Frankfurt) and myself (from Saskatchewan University). The products were a large number of papers (22), fact sheets (4) and country studies (4). More important in operational terms was a conference held in Bad Homburg in September 1995 for delegations to the Preparatory Conference in The Hague. The publication of its conference proceedings clearly pointed the way ahead for, and provided a model successful approach to, the eventual implementation of the CWC by bringing together national authorities and the chemical industry, allowing them to share information and suggesting solutions for problems related to implementation.

With the development of the CWC, the build-up of the OPCW and the new negotiations for a protocol on verification of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC), the world appeared in the mid-1990s to be on the right track for the elimination of these weapons of mass destruction. Unfortunately, however, this was not to be so. The USA effectively destroyed the BTWC protocol negotiations, and science proceeded to make biological weapons a much more serious potential problem. The USA appeared to be involved in secret biodefence programmes, while Russia has not yet fully disclosed all its activities in biological weapons and has potential chemical weapons that do not appear on any schedules of the CWC. There is great interest in the development and use of ‘non-lethal weapons’ that could vitiate the way that riot control agents were supposed to be handled under the CWC. The revolutions in biotechnology involving neuropharmacology and bioregulators have the power to defeat the fundamental aims of the CWC and the BTWC in the absence of serious negotiations among states parties.

The USA’s current predilection to ‘go it alone’ will make the world a more dangerous place. Happily, SIPRI is still with us and it will surely keep the spotlight on these untoward developments.

I have been lucky to be involved with SIPRI over the years and blessed with the chance to join in the work of dedicated researchers there towards peace and disarmament, under a series of effective directors.

I would like to dedicate this contribution to the memory of Dr S. Johan Lundin, a former Senior Director of Research for FOA and the renewer of fundamental research in CBW for SIPRI.