The integrated environmental monitoring system as a key factor of environmental safety of chemical weapons storage and destruction facilities

In the destruction of chemical weapons initiated in the Russian Federation in 1996, environmental safety issues played a key role in the creation of facilities for storing and destroying chemical weapons. The process of destroying chemical weapons is at the stage of eliminating consequences of activities and involving former destruction facilities in the economic turnover. The issue of development of safety systems is relevant. The purpose of the article is to study problems in the system of environmental safety insurance at chemical weapons destruction facilities and to identify possible ways of further development. The main methods used are analysis of information, induction, analogies, and generalization. The following conclusions were drawn: the environmental safety system fits into the system of safety insurance; the key subsystem is highly accurate and prompt environmental monitoring. Responding to the principles of the construction of head systems, complex monitoring systems were created at chemical weapons destruction facilities. The improvement of this subsystem can improve the environmental safety at these facilities; further development of the integrated environmental monitoring system requires the methods of data analysis and processing tools. Since the result of the monitoring system is information, its processing and interpretation is the most complex and time-consuming process. The use of modern information processing tools can reduce the time for an analysis, improve the quality, and create an information base for decision support systems in the environmental safety system. The research made it possible to outline further ways to improve the environmental safety systems at chemical weapons destruction facilities, which will further ensure the environmental safety and sustainability of chemical weapons destruction facilities and other potentially dangerous facilities that affect the environment.

The Two Faces of Opposition to Chemical Weapons: Sincere Versus Insincere Norm-Holders

Prominent research holds that the use of weapons of mass destruction is taboo. But how strong are these norms? Investigating this question among the mass public, we argue that some citizens actually support taboo policies in private but are unwilling to express counter-normative opinions openly due to fear of social sanction. These insincere norm-holders are difficult to identify empirically because they are observationally equivalent to sincere norm-holders in direct-question surveys. To overcome this challenge, we use a list design, which allows survey respondents to indirectly express sensitive opinions. The results from three list experiments show that between 10% and 17% of Americans falsify their preferences over chemical weapons use when asked directly. In an extension, we explore our framework in the realm of nuclear weapons and elite behavior. Our findings advance a specific debate on the strength of weapons taboos, while our conceptualization of insincere norm-holders and methodological application have broader implications for how scholars might think about and measure norms in international politics.

Advances in identifying and tracking malicious contamination of food in agri-food supply chains

This chapter is about the history of bio-warfare, and how biological and bio-chemical weapons were developed during the two World Wars and afterwards. There are examples of attacks to the food chain of entire communities with biochemical weapons by either single individuals or groups, and attacks to single persons who are politically active with newly developed chemical agents. There are also example of attacks to agriculture, so-called agro-terrorism. All these impairment of the food chain have a terroristic base and manage to diminish consumer trust in the health of food and in the efficacy of the food chain control, costing billions of United States (US) dollars to the sector as a result. The final part of the chapter is dedicated to the use of biosensors and how through their deployment agencies have been able to protect communities from disruptive events, such as bioterrorism, should they occur in any part of the food chain.

Development and Human Testing of Chemical Warfare Agents and Means of Treatment of Lesions in Germany in 1933–1945

Despite serious attention to the issues of war crimes and crimes against humanity, committed on an unprecedented scale in concentration camps in Nazi Germany, the problem of medical experiments on prisoners appears to be one of the least-studied in modern Russian historiography. Moreover, no special attention was paid to testing chemical weapons on humans. The aim of this work is to review the history of the development and testing of chemical warfare agents (CWA) in Germany in 1933–1945. During the First World War, Germany was one of the leading countries in the sphere of military chemistry in the world. After the Versailles treaty this potential was largely lost as a result of the restrictions. After the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) came to power, Germany not only restored, but also increased its military power and achieved a qualitative superiority over its opponents in the field of chemical weapons. The tests of CWA, as well as the study of the effectiveness of the means and protocols for the treatment of the lesions caused by CWA, were carried out both by the military structures of the Wehrmacht and the SS, and by civilian research and academic institutions. Experiments on prisoners were carried out in the concentration camps of Dachau, Ravensbrück, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen, Natzweiler-Struthof, Neuengamme, etc. Basically, the damaging effects of sulfur mustard and phosgene was investigated. In Auschwitz-Birkenau «a study of the action of various chemical preparations was carried out on the orders of German firms». After the war several SS doctors, who performed involuntary experiments on humans, were convicted by military tribunals for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Seven doctors were sentenced to death and executed on June 2, 1948, at the prison for war criminals in Landsberg, Bavaria. As a result of the Nuremberg trials, the Nuremberg Code was drawn up. It was the first international document that introduced ethical standards for scientists engaged in experiments on humans. It consisted of 10 principles, including the necessity of voluntary informed consent of the patient for the participation in medical experiments after providing him with full information about the nature, duration and purpose of the experiment; on the methods of its implementation; about all the perceived inconveniences and dangers associated with the experiment, and, finally, the possible consequences for the physical or mental health of the subject, which may arise as a result of his participation in the experiment.