Ban on the Development of Biological Weapons

The Ministry of Commerce, Industry, and Energy made a revision of the law to ban the production of biological weapons and biological agents (toxins) that can be used in wars or terrorist attacks and to allow the usage of biological agents only for peaceful purposes.

The ministry said on December 20 that it submitted to the National Assembly the revision aimed at tightening measures to regulate the production and trade of biological agents in order to ban chemical weapons.

The existing bill regulates only the development and production of chemical weapons. The revised law has a complementing article regarding biological weapons.

The ministry plans to make an enforcement ordinance and exercise it in 2007 after the National Assembly passes the law.

The revised law completely bans the production, possession, transport, and use of biological agents for the purpose of developing or manufacturing biological weapons and introduces the license system regarding import and export of biological agents that can be used as biological weapons.

In addition, those who aim to produce or possess biological agents for peaceful purposes such as treating diseases should report to the government authorities on the amount of manufacturing and possession.

The ministry said, “The legal ground is provided to implement domestically the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) (South Korea signed the BWC in 1987). We expect that enforcing the domestic law for implementation of the BWC will raise the nation’s transparency on the international stage.”

Chang-Won Kim changkim@donga.com