State Duma deputy Gennady Onishchenko called for modernization of international legislation within the framework of the CSTO to overcome the pandemic

Gennady Onishchenko, a deputy of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation and former chief sanitary inspector, states that discussion of biological security within the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and possible modernization of international legislation to combat the biological weapons development will be a way out of the coronavirus pandemic, TASS reported on May 20.
Gennady Onishchenko, first deputy Chairman of the Committee on Education and Science of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, noted at a press conference that since “the issues of biological terrorism and biological weapons are still on the agenda,” it was necessary “to follow up on the already fading epidemic” by adopting an international instrument within the CSTO that will allow its Member States to develop a mechanism for controlling biological weapons.

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The parliamentarian believes that it is necessary to draft and propose for adoption a new international legal instrument which could become an updated version of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction (BWC), opened for signature back in 1972. “Or [it could serve as] a separate document, but developed it must be, because today biology has come to the fore," concluded the academician.