Biotech will be weaponized

Using biological agents as weapons is illegal, but an organism that scientists lawfully use for genuine research could be repurposed for an attack. Therefore, what is banned depends on what an actor plans to do rather than the actual pathogens.

“I think using this approach, called the general-purpose criterion, which defines weapons through intent, actually, you have quite a robust way at the international multilateral level of future-proofing the convention,” said James Revill, head of the weapons of mass destruction program at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research.

While it’s hard to assess the intentions of a malicious actor, international consensus leans toward not using biological agents as weapons.

“There is something potentially psychological which does make biological weapons a bit different and which feeds into this taboo on the hostile use of biology,” Revill told SIGNAL Media in an interview.

With the emergence of biotechnology, these considerations become murkier. Efficient manipulation of an organism’s DNA can produce more lethal agents leveraging recent scientific advances. In lieu of this, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), an international organization, urged all countries to renounce this potential path to novel weapons of mass destruction.

“The ICRC urges States to adopt at a high political level an international Declaration on ‘Biotechnology, Weapons and Humanity’ containing a renewed commitment to existing norms and specific commitments to future preventive action,” said a 2002 document by the institution.

Leveraging biotechnology could be a new, more terrorizing form of adopting technologies for greater destruction. Nevertheless, for one specialist, this is only another iteration of the age-old weaponization of life.