Biological Weapons Convention
First Regional Workshop

Melbourne, 21-25 February 2005

The APCML organised a Regional Workshop for South East Asian Government Officials on more effective national implementation of the 1975 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) from 21-25 February 2005. The Workshop was co-hosted by the Australian Department of Defence and the Indonesian Foreign Ministry and convened by Associate Professor Bob Mathews, a Principal Research Scientist with the Defence Science and Technology Organisation.

The Workshop was officially opened by the Minister for Defence, Senator Robert Hill. He was joined by the Indonesian Consul-General to Melbourne, Mr Wahid Supriyadi. Both speakers identified the growing threat of bio-terrorism in the Asia-Pacific Region with Senator Hill suggesting that the rapid advances in the biological sciences and bio-technology, and the widespread availability of this information and associated material make the regional threat of terrorist use of biological weapons all the more real.

Workshop participants discussed the obligations of States Parties to the BWC, codes of conduct for scientists involved in biological research, different approaches to national implementing legislation, biological defence and surveillance, detection and combating of infectious diseases.

Papers from the Workshop were published at the end of 2005.