1 CBRN Events: A Rapidly Evolving Definitional Framework?
Since the early years of the 21st century, incidents related to chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear agents have been referred to as CBRN threats or events. However, there is no universally accepted definition of a CBRN threat or event, and States, international organisations (IO s) and non-State actors have given their own definitions and designed their own strategies to face such threats. At times, the abbreviation CBRNE is also used, to take into account the use of explosives (E) and improvised explosive devices (IED s) in terrorist attacks. Although a CBRN legal framework has been established in the context of some IO s, there seems to be a general lack of coordination among the different actors involved, even at the initial stage of identifying the most relevant challenges and including them under a CBRN categorisation.
CBRN threats and events may include the use of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons, both by State and non-State actors (including terrorist movements); the use of CBRN agents for smaller-scale crimes; industrial accidents involving the release of CBRN agents into the environment; natural disasters or other calamities – such as the spread of COVID-19 in 2020 and the ensuing world pandemic.1 However, notwithstanding the diversity of CBRN agents and events, States and IO s have traditionally used the CBRN label mainly when addressing security issues – or even more narrowly in a counter-terrorism perspective – whereas, the CBRN categorisation is very rarely employed when addressing natural disasters and public health emergencies. A telling example of the predominant view is UN Security Council resolution 1373 (2001) – the first resolution to refer to CBRN agents (although not under this acronym) – where the emphasis was placed on the connection between international terrorism and the illegal movement of nuclear, chemical, biological and other potentially deadly materials.2 Again in a counter-terrorism perspective, the UN Security Council adopted resolution 1540 (2004), where it affirmed that the proliferation of CBRN weapons and their means of delivery, and the illicit trafficking of related materials, constitute a threat to international peace and security.3 The acronym was not used in either of these resolutions, but we can see that the CBRN concept was starting to take shape and progress in the direction of setting obligations for States to counter the proliferation and smuggling of weapons of mass destruction, with the specific objective of preventing terrorist acts.4 Indeed, within the counter-terrorism context, various measures were adopted by the UN Security Council in the following years.5
On the other hand, no express references to CBRN threats are found if one looks at the UN framework for disaster relief or, more generally, to the area commonly labelled as disaster risk reduction (DRR). The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 not only does not explicitly refer to CBRN threats, but it excludes armed conflicts and it is mainly focused on natural disasters. Hence, the urgent call by the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction, Mami Mizutori, for the disaster management agencies to include biological hazards and health emergencies as a top priority when developing their preparedness and response capacities.6 The debate is ongoing on the need for a paradigm shift towards an all-hazards approach and for a transition from managing disasters to managing risks, as the development of the Global Risk Assessment Framework (GRAF) concept clearly shows.7
2 CBRN Definitional Framework: A Mandatory Shift towards an All-Hazards Approach
In light of this rapidly evolving scenario, fast-tracked by the COVID-19 global pandemic, a broad interpretation of the CBRN category is called for, with a view to including a variety of different events; that is to say, an all-hazards approach must be made mandatory.8 One of the basic assumptions underlying this volume is that most of the rules emerging in disaster law (both related to man-made and natural disasters) and documents drafted by IO s in this context – although not referring explicitly nor exclusively to CBRN threats – could also be applied to all kind of incidents related to CBRN agents. The CBRN label may still be very useful in the way it has been developed until now – ie referred to mainly for its security and counter-terrorism dimensions – but at the same time it has to be construed as applicable to a category of events and threats that is becoming broader in scope.
Against the background of this unavoidable paradigm shift, it is timely and appropriate to investigate whether there is room for a better coordination of international efforts to prevent, prepare, respond to and recover from CBRN threats and events, highlighting the points of connection among the different legal frameworks (or lack thereof) or, more precisely, the points of connection among the different sets of obligations that have emerged and strategies that have developed up until now to prepare and react to different kinds of risks posed by disasters or hazardous events.9
To give a significant example: there is a strong point of contact between public health and security issues, as the Ebola outbreak of 2014 clearly demonstrated.10 The COVID-19 pandemic has already precipitated exceptional humanitarian crises,11 which may require unprecedented coordination among States in terms of a security or peace maintenance response. The UNSC could not initially adopt a resolution, due to the high tension between the US and China and the US refusal to allow any reference to the World Health Organization.12 On 3 April 2020, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution titled ‘Global solidarity to fight the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)’.13 At the same time, the SG called the attention of the UNSC to a variety of challenges to peace and stability caused by the pandemic.14 However, due to the lack of agreement among the P5, it was not until 1 July 2020 that the UNSC adopted resolution 2352 where, for the first time, it called for a general ceasefire and humanitarian pause in armed conflicts across the globe.15
In sum, COVID-19 and any similar kind of threat fall firmly into the category of CBRN events as understood today. This does not mean that all such events – including the current pandemic – must be inevitably securitised or addressed through a security lens or by using the ‘war’ metaphor.16 On the contrary, one of the objectives of this book is precisely to analyse the multitude of potential legal frameworks and the different sets of obligations related to CBRN events – from international health regulations to human rights law, from disarmament and IHL (including the use of CBRN weapons) to environmental law – and to explore their possible interactions.
In light of the above, it is important to adopt, as a common analytical framework, the phases of the disaster management cycle: prevention, preparedness, response and recovery.17 This framework is a useful instrument for mapping international obligations in various fields and their implementation by States at different moments, as well as for highlighting the merits and pitfalls of legal tools that may be used with regard to CBRN events. The four phases may be briefly described as follows:
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1) Prevention includes those ‘activities and measures to avoid existing and new disaster risks’ and measures aimed at ‘lessening or minimizing of the adverse impacts of a hazardous event’ (mitigation) if a disaster occurs anyway.18 Prevention is crucial to avoiding CBRN events and it includes risks and vulnerabilities assessments.
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2) Preparedness, in the DRR terminology, is defined as the knowledge and capacities developed by governments, professional response and recovery organisations, communities and individuals to effectively anticipate, respond to and recover from the impacts of likely, imminent or current disasters. Regarding CBRN events, preparedness is also connected to risk assessments and to capacity building in the form of early-warning systems and procedures that can be quickly implemented in case of need.
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3) Response refers to ‘actions taken directly before, during or immediately after a disaster in order to save lives, reduce health impacts, ensure public safety and meet the basic subsistence needs of the people affected’. To give an example connected to the COVID-19 pandemic, response activities may include public health measures such as isolation and quarantine.
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4) Recovery concerns ‘the restoring or improving of livelihoods and health, as well as economic, physical, social, cultural and environmental assets, systems and activities, of a disaster affected community or society, aligning with the principles of sustainable development and “build back better”, to avoid or reduce future disaster risk’. With respect to recovery after a CBRN event, it is crucial that victims are provided with adequate and long-term support.
Even a brief description clearly shows that the four phases are not isolated compartments. They are instead to be considered as communicating vessels, so that measures and tools devised for one of the phases may be useful for the others.
3 An Overview of the CBRN Events Covered in This Book
In light of the above, the CBRN events covered in this book include small- and large-scale, slow and rapid onset, natural and man-made incidents and disasters caused by a CBRN agent.
3.1 Chemical Threats/Agents
Chemical threats/events include, in the first place, the weaponisation of various kinds of gas, their use during armed conflicts and their use (including by non-State/terrorist actors) also in times of peace. Notwithstanding various norms prohibiting chemical weapons, they have been repeatedly used, as widely reported, in various conflicts both by States and non-State actors.19 Chemical weapons have also been used in terrorist attacks causing small or large-scale casualties and spreading panic. Relevant examples include cases dating back to the 1990s. For instance, the use of sarin gas in Japan in June 1994 and again in March 1995 caused great shock and dramatically showed how chemical agents could be employed against helpless citizens.20
Over the years, terrorist networks such as Al-Qaeda and ISIL – besides their involvement in armed conflicts and their use of chemical weapons in that context – have been suspected of planning chemical attacks in European cities.21 Therefore, it is unsurprising that concerns over chemical agents are most frequently expressed in the context of threats from terrorism.22
Cases where chemical agents were used to carry out assassinations or assassination attempts are also to be taken into consideration. The VX nerve agent was used to kill North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s half-brother, Kim Jong Nam, at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia in 2017.23 Toxic chemical agents were used in the UK in 2018 in attacks against three-individuals, Mr Sergej Skripal, Ms Yulia Skripal and Mr Nicholas Bailey.24 The consequences of this kind of use of toxic chemicals in public spaces can extend well beyond the direct target and could potentially affect a large number of victims.
Chemical threats/events also include the accidental release of toxic agents, such as from a chemical plant or a pipeline. The most serious chemical accident ever recorded is the Bhopal disaster that occurred in 1984 in India, where more than 3,000 people died after a highly toxic gas was released from a Union Carbide Pesticides Factory.25 Very serious industrial accidents had already occurred in Europe, such as the Flixborough accident in 197426 and the Seveso disaster in 1976.27 In addition, the transportation and storage of chemical agents may also cause very serious accidents, like the one that occurred on 4 August 2020 at the port of Beirut when a large amount of ammonium nitrate stored in a warehouse exploded causing more than 2,000 deaths, hundreds of injuries and leaving 300,000 homeless.28 With respect to accidental chemical events, this book will investigate the role of private actors in detail.29 Lastly, it is also important to note that natural disasters, such as earthquakes or volcanic eruptions, can also release chemical substances.
3.2 Biological Threats/Events
Biological agents may also be weaponised in a variety of different ways. They may be used as weapons delivered through bombs and missiles, or delivered indirectly through the contamination of water and food. History is full of attempts at using diseases in biological warfare.30 The 1925 Geneva Protocol was the first explicit ban on the use of biological agents as weapons of war.31 In spite of the ban, several countries began biological warfare research programmes during World War II. The most prominent one was the Japanese programme, led by the notorious ‘Unit 731’, located in Manchuria (1932–1945).32 Negotiations to prohibit biological weapons became part of the international agenda with the creation of the United Nations. The result was the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), which prohibited possession of any biological or toxin weapons,33 although without establishing a monitoring mechanism.34
Besides the use of biological weapons by States, both in armed conflicts and outside that context, the issue of bioterrorism has emerged.35 Al Qaeda allegedly started a biological weapons programme in the late 1990s, in Afghanistan, but there is no evidence that it ever acquired any biological agents. These activities were disrupted by the US Operation Enduring Freedom and the programme was never put back together.36 Other radical jihadist groups also expressed interest in BW but eventually focused on capabilities easier to acquire such as chemical weapons.37
On the other hand, the COVID-19 pandemic clearly shows that infectious diseases can spread on a worldwide basis with very little time to react and with very serious and long-lasting detrimental effects on global health. The category of Global Catastrophic Biological Risks (GCBR) applies to risks involving biological agents – whether naturally emerging or re-emerging, deliberately created and released, or laboratory-engineered and escaped – that could lead to sudden, extraordinary, widespread disaster beyond the collective capability of national and international organisations and the private sector to control.38 Actually, when comparing the hypothetical nature of intentional attacks with biological weapons/agents with the death toll of the current pandemic (and with the number of victims dying each year from preventable infections), one might question how reasonable it is for States and IO s to allocate vast resources and efforts to preparations for a remote and speculative human-inflicted disaster instead of investing in the management of GCBR events.39
3.3 Radio-Nuclear Threats/Events
Radio-nuclear agents may also be weaponised for potential use in the context of armed conflicts and/or in the context of terrorist attacks. An example of a radiological threat is the use of radiological dispersal devices (RDD s also called dirty bombs) that disperse radioactive substances used for medical or industrial applications, which are relatively easy to obtain, by attaching them to explosive devices.40 The efforts to negotiate a radiological weapons convention failed, whereas, as far as nuclear weapons and threats are concerned there has been a long series of treaties aiming at heading towards nuclear disarmament and a ban on nuclear testing.41
Radio-nuclear accidents may range from isolated cases of accidental contamination or over-exposure of a few persons (for instance medical professionals) to major catastrophes with global dimensions, like Chernobyl and Fukushima. The disposal of radio-nuclear waste is also capable of causing a CBRN event.
In 1990, the IAEA and the Nuclear Energy Agency of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD/NEA) developed a scale of gravity: the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES). The scale was originally intended to classify events at nuclear power plants but was gradually extended to be applied to events occurring at all installations associated with the civil nuclear industry. It has since been extended and adapted to indicate the gravity of all events associated with the use, storage and transport of radioactive material and radiation sources.42 There are already several ongoing attempts at drawing up complete lists of radio-nuclear events.43
4 Concluding Remarks
The main purpose of this very preliminary and non-exhaustive overview of CBRN events and threats is to highlight the gradual enlargement of the CBRN concept/paradigm and the ensuing need to adopt an all-hazards approach in the investigation of the response of the international community to such threats and in the identification of existing obligations and of the most relevant current challenges. This book is indeed an attempt at addressing crucial questions such as: Is there any added value in applying strategies adopted in other sectors to CBRN events and to CBRN risk-management? Are the strategies that have been explicitly developed so far to respond to CBRN events useful for dealing with other emergencies such as natural disasters or pandemic outbreaks? This far-reaching approach also explains why a number of horizontal issues are tackled and why a section on responsibilities, enforcement mechanisms and remedies is included.44
As COVID-19 found the international community largely unprepared, it seems important not to act as the proverbial generals fighting the last war, by preparing responses applicable only to the threats of yesterday.
Bibliography
Cameron E, ‘Emerging and Converging Global Catastrophic Biological Risks’ (2017) 15 Health security 337.
Connolly C, ‘War and the Coronavirus Pandemic’, Third World Approaches to International Law Review, Reflections #15/2020, 9 April 2020.
Cusato E, Beyond War Talk: Laying Bare the Structural Violence of the Pandemic, EJIL Talk!, 3 May 2020.
Geissler E and van Courtland Moon J (eds.), Biological and Toxin Weapons: Research, Development, and Use from the Middle Ages to 1945 (OUP 1999).
Hood A, ‘Ebola: A Threat to the Parameters of a Threat to the Peace?’ (2015) 16 Melbourne Journal of International Law 29.
Leitenberg M, Assessing the Biological Weapons and Bioterrorism Threat (University of Michigan 2005).
Pobjie E, ‘Covid-19 as a threat to international peace and security: The role of the UN Security Council in addressing the pandemic’, EJILTalk!, 27 July 2020.
Hence, the role of private actors such as multinational enterprises is also relevant, see ch 2 by Di Francesco Maesa.
‘The Security Council […] Notes with concern the close connection between international terrorism and transnational organized crime, illicit drugs, money-laundering, illegal arms trafficking, and illegal movement of nuclear, chemical, biological and other potentially deadly materials, and in this regard emphasizes the need to enhance coordination of efforts on national, subregional, regional and international levels in order to strengthen a global response to this serious challenge and threat to international security’, UN Doc. S/RES/1373 (28 September 2001) (emphasis added).
‘Gravely concerned by the threat of illicit trafficking in nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons and their means of delivery, and related materials, which adds a new dimension to the issue of proliferation of such weapons and also poses a threat to international peace and security’, UN Doc. S/RES/1540 (28 April 2004).
See also, for another example, the CBRN glossary, adopted by the European Commission Directorate-General Home Affairs Directorate A: Internal security Unit A.1: Crisis management – Terrorism, available at <
Addressing CBRN events from a counter-terrorism perspective is indeed a crucial topic to be addressed. Obligations related to prevention, preparedness, response and recovery in the event of CBRN terrorism, including those stemming from UNSC resolutions are analysed in depth in Part II, Section 2.1, ch 7 by Poltronieri Rossetti, ch 8 by de Guttry, ch 9 by Perrone.
UNDRR Press Release, 12 March 2020, UNDRR urges disaster management agencies to prior- itize biological hazards, at <
‘We need a transition from managing disasters to managing risk. We need to shift from managing “conventional” hazards to engineering an improved understanding of the dynamic interactions with systemic risks. We need to explore the facilitation of a “new system of relations” that allows future theories and solutions to emerge that are “wider in scope, more accurate in prediction, and solve more problems […] We recognize that using the same ways of understanding risk that we have always used has made us ill-equipped to manage the challenges we face. A clear example of this is the COVID-19 global emergency’, Marc Gordon, Scott Williams, ‘Shifting the paradigm: introducing the Global Risk Assessment Framework (GRAF)’ UNDRR, 17 April 2020 (emphasis added), available at <
In the most recent Report of the UN Secretary General on the Implementation of the Sendai Framework, it is significantly stated that: ‘The Sendai Framework presents a paradigm for understanding and managing systemic risk under which the prevailing focus on natural hazards is expanded to include human-made, technological, environmental and biological hazards’, UNGA, ‘Implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030’, Report of the Secretary General, UN Doc. A/75/226 (23 July 2020), para 6.
See Part II, where a comprehensive research approach is adopted.
With resolution 2177, the SC determined that the Ebola outbreak in West Africa was a threat to international peace and security (UN Doc S/RES/2177 (2015) determined that: ‘the unprecedented extent of the Ebola outbreak in Africa constitutes a threat to international peace and security’.) and recommended that States take a number of steps to help bring the disease under control. Despite the difference between the Ebola outbreak and more ‘traditional’ threats to the peace, 130 States co-sponsored resolution 2177 and were keen to consider the spread of the disease as a threat to the peace. Anna Hood identifies five categories of explanations that States gave for supporting the resolution, the most interesting one seems to be that of human security broadly interpreted, see A Hood, ‘Ebola: A Threat to the Parameters of a Threat to the Peace?’ (2015) 16 Melbourne Journal of International Law.
See ‘COVID-19 and Deadly Conflict’, International crisis group, at <
A Franco-Tunisian draft resolution failed to get adopted in April, International Rescue Committee, Press Release, UN Security Council fails to support global cease-fire, see <
Here the GA notes ‘with great concern the threat to human health, safety and well-being caused by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, which continues to spread globally’. It then ‘reaffirms the central role of the United Nations system in the global response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic’ and it calls for ‘intensified international cooperation to contain, mitigate and defeat the pandemic, including by exchanging information, scientific knowledge and best practices and by applying the relevant guidelines recommended by the World Health Organization’ UN Doc. A/RES/74/270, 3 April 2020, available at <
See the General remarks of the Secretary General before the Security Council, 9 April 2020 <
UN Doc. S/RES/2352 (2020). E Pobjie, ‘Covid-19 as a threat to international peace and security: The role of the UN Security Council in addressing the pandemic’, EJILTalk!, 27 July 2020 <
Some observers warned about the perils of securitising COVID-19, see C Connolly ‘War and the Coronavirus Pandemic’, Third World Approaches to International Law Review, Reflections #15/2020, 9 April 2020; E Cusato, Beyond War Talk: Laying Bare the Structural Violence of the Pandemic, EJIL Talk!, 3 May 2020 <
For a more detailed description of the phases, see the working paper by S Venier, ‘CBRN emergency management cycle: working definitions’, available on the Project CBRN_Italy website at <
See Section V, Recommendations of the open-ended intergovernmental expert working group on terminology relating to disaster risk reduction (DRR updated terminology), included in Report of the open-ended intergovernmental expert working group on indicators and terminology relating to disaster risk reduction, 1 December 2016, UN Doc. A/71/644. The recommendations were endorsed by the UNGA Resolution 71/276, UN Doc. A/RES/71/276, 2 February 2017. All the definitions reported in this paragraph are contained in this Report, at 21–22, see <
See for instance A M Amoroso, The Douma Chemical attack, Factsheet available on the Project CBRN Italy website at <
See A Vitale, Tokyo subway sarin attack, Factsheet available on the Project CBRN Italy website at <
For example, D Bamber, C Hastings, and R Syal, ‘Bin Laden British Cell Planned Gas Attack on European Parliament’, The Daily Telegraph (London), 16 September 2001.
See Part II, Section 2.1: Prevention, preparedness, response and recovery in the event of CBRN terrorism. It is also appropriate to investigate whether the strategies developed from a counter-terrorism perspective could be adapted to other threats. See for instance the EU shift towards an all-hazards approach; on EU efforts: ch 6 by Casolari, ch 10 by S Villani, ch 15 by Balboni, ch 19 by Ferri.
R Latiff, E Chow, Chemical weapon VX nerve agent killed North Korean leader’s half brother: Malaysian Police, Reuters, 24 February 2017, at <
UN Press release, 14 March 2018, available at <
Indian officials estimate that the gas leak left nearly 3,000 people dead and 50,000 people permanently disabled and that 15,000 people died subsequently from exposure to the poisonous gas (Unofficial estimates range up to 7,000–8,000 initial deaths, and 15,000–20,000 subsequent deaths), see <
M Dunton, ‘Flixborough, 1 June 1974’, The National Archives, Records and Research, 20 May 2014, available at <
See M Frulli, D Mauri, The Seveso disaster, Factsheet available on the Project CBRN Italy website at <
See ‘Beirut explosion: What we know so far’, BBC News, 11 August 2020, at <
See ch 2 by Di Francesco Maesa, ch 30 by Corcione. More in general, see Part II, Section 2.2. Prevention, preparedness, response and recovery in the event of CBRN industrial accidents.
E M Eitzen Jr, E T Takafuji, ‘Historical overview of biological warfare’, in F Sidell, E T Takafuji, D R Franz (eds.) Medical Aspects of Chemical and Biological Warfare (Borden Institute, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, 1997), 415–423.
J R Walker, ‘The 1925 Geneva Protocol: Export Controls, Britain, Poland and Why the Protocol Came to Include “Bacteriological” Warfare’, Harvard Sussex Program Occasional Paper 05 (2016).
P Williams, D Wallace, Unit 731: Japan’s Secret Biological Warfare in World War II (Free Press 1989); S Harris, ‘The Japanese biological warfare programme’, in E Geissler, J van Courtland Moon (eds.), Biological and Toxin Weapons: Research, Development, and Use from the Middle Ages to 1945 (OUP 1999), 127.
See ch 23 by Poli.
On monitoring mechanisms, see ch 26 by Buscemi.
W R Clark, ‘Bioterrorism Beginnings: The Rajneesh Cult, Oregon, 1985’, in OUP Blog, 5 October 2009, at <
M Leitenberg, Assessing the Biological Weapons and Bioterrorism Threat (University of Michigan 2005); R Mowatt- Larssen, ‘Al Qaeda Weapons of Mass Destruction Threat: Hype or Reality?’ Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School, January 2010, available at <
S Hummel, ‘The Islamic State and WMD: Assessing the Future Threat’, CTC Sentinel 9, no. 1 (January 2016), 18–22.
Global Catastrophic Biological Risks (GCBR s) are biological risks of unprecedented scale that have the potential to cause such significant damage to human civilisation that they undermine its long-term potential. Uncontrolled, the impact of a global catastrophic biological event would cause tremendous loss of life; societal instability; prolonged damage to governments and economies; damage to international relationships; and would threaten global security, see the Nuclear threat Initiative website at <
On naturally occurring CBRN events, including epidemic outbreaks, see Part II, Section 2.3 of this book.
A radioactive ‘dirty bomb’ or radiological dispersal device (RDD), made by combining radioactive material with conventional explosives to spread it, would not cause catastrophic levels of death and injury on the scale of a nuclear weapon detonation. A dirty bomb explosion could cause significant short- and long-term health problems for those in the area and could leave billions of dollars in damage due to the costs of evacuation, relocation and clean-up. Buildings would have to be demolished and debris removed. Access to a contaminated area could be limited for years, until the site is cleaned well enough to meet environmental standards for protecting the public against harmful gamma rays that could penetrate human skin and potentially cause cellular damage.
See ch 23 by Poli.
The International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES) is a tool for communicating the safety significance of nuclear and radiological events to the public. Member States use INES on a voluntary basis to rate and communicate events that occur within their territory. It is not a notification or reporting system to be used in emergency response, see <
See for instance the lists of relevant incidents available, respectively, at <
See Part IV and Part V of this book.