Under the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) States Parties must transpose the BTWC obligations into national legislative and other measures in order to penalise violations of prohibited activities and to prevent the misuse of dual-use biological materials and technology for weapons purposes.

While this requires an allocation of staff and financial resources that is appropriate to the State’s particular situation, many of these tasks can be integrated with other extant measures and administrative structures. For example, customs officials and law enforcement officers enforce biological weapons offences alongside other civil and criminal offences. Furthermore, tasks may be performed by staff working on related functions. The national agencies responsible for enforcing certain biosafety measures (such as health, occupational safety, food safety, drug regulations) may also be assigned responsibility for enforcing biosecurity measures.

Assistance is available on all aspects of BTWC implementation, in particular, legislative drafting assistance, awareness-raising for national stakeholders, law enforcement training and the development of biosecurity measures and procedures. This assistance can help States draft and adopt any necessary national measures, benefit from the experiences of other States, and train their personnel to enforce the adopted measures. Such assistance is provided by States, agencies contracted by States and international and regional organisations.