Why it is in news?

• India  joined the Australia Group saying that the membership will be mutually beneficial.
• The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) stated that India’s entry into the group which aims to prevent proliferation of biological and chemical weapons, will ensure a more secure world.
• The Australia Group decided to admit India as its 43rd participant. India would like to thank each of the participants. Its entry would be mutually beneficial and further contribute to international security and non-proliferation objectives
• Earlier, in a separate statement, the Australia Group said India’s membership will help to counter the “spread of materials, equipment and technologies that could contribute to the development or acquisition of chemical/biological weapons.”

Show of support

• Diplomats said the entry is a show of support from the international community for India’s non-proliferation records.
• India’s entry shows that our export controls and safeguards for biological and chemical agents, equipments and technologies meet the benchmarks established by the international community
• India joined the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) in 2016 and the Wassenaar Arrangement (WA) last year.
• The Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-Use Goods and Technologies is a multilateral export control regime.
• It is understood that the membership will also boost India’s membership bid for the Nuclear Suppliers Group which is being opposed by China.

What is Australlia Group?

• The Australia Group (AG) is an informal forum of countries which, through the harmonisation of export controls, seeks to ensure that exports do not contribute to the development of chemical or biological weapons.
• Coordination of national export control measures assists Australia Group participants to fulfil their obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention to the fullest extent possible.
• The Australia Group is a multilateral export control regime (MECR) and an informal group of countries (now joined by the European Commission) established in 1985 (after the use of chemical weapons by Iraq in 1984) to help member countries to identify those exports which need to be controlled so as not to contribute to the spread of chemical and biological weapons.
• 
• All of the participants in the Australia Group are States Parties to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC), which has been in force since 1975.
• They have also been active in efforts to strengthen the Treaty, including through active participation in the confidence building measures agreed by successive BWC review conferences, and in annual meetings since the Fifth Review Conference in 2001.

Biological Weapons Convention (BWC)

• The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) is a legally binding treaty that outlaws biological arms.
• After being discussed and negotiated in the United Nations' disarmament forum starting in 1969, the BWC opened for signature on April 10, 1972, and entered into force on March 26, 1975.
• It currently has 179 states-parties and six signatories (Central African Republic, Egypt, Haiti, Somalia, Syria, and Tanzania).
• Eleven states have neither signed nor ratifed the BWC (Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Israel, Kiribati, Micronesia, Namibia, Niue, South Sudan and Tuvalu).

 The BWC bans:

• The development, stockpiling, acquisition, retention, and production of:

1. Biological agents and toxins "of types and in quantities that have no justification for prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes;"
2. Weapons, equipment, and delivery vehicles "designed to use such agents or toxins for hostile purposes or in armed conflict."

• The transfer of or assistance with acquiring the agents, toxins, weapons, equipment, and delivery vehicles described above.
• Biological weapon.

                           Biological weapon, also called germ weapon, any of a number of disease-producing agents—such as bacteria, viruses, rickettsiae, fungi, toxins, or other biological agents—that may be utilized as weapons against humans, animals, or plants.

Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC)

• The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) is an arms control treaty that outlaws the production, stockpiling, and use of chemical weapons and their precursors.
• The full name of the treaty is the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction and it is administered by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), an intergovernmental organization based in The Hague, Netherlands.
• The treaty entered into force in 1997.
• The most well known Chemical weapons

    1)  choking agents—chlorine and phosgene

• blister agents (or vesicants)—mustard and lewisite,
• blood agents—hydrogen cyanide,
• nerve agents—sarin, soman, VX.

Source

The Hindu,