Biological Weapons Convention

The Biological Weapons Convention, abbreviated BWC and also called the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention or BTWC, is a disarmament treaty that effectively bans biological and toxin weapons. It does so by prohibiting the development, production, acquisition, transfer, stockpiling and use of such weapons. Its full title is the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction, a name that also signals the treaty's requirement that existing stocks be destroyed. As an arms control instrument of public international law it belongs with the multilateral disarmament conventions, and it is a principal legal reference for the international ban on this class of weapon.