This is not Nam. This is bowling. There are rules.
Five years after the United States brought an early end to a review of an international treaty banning biological weapons, conference delegates have resurrected a casualty of that diplomatic breakdown (see GSN, Nov. 20).
It is not, however, a resumption of discussion of treaty verification measures, the issue that brought the 2001 meeting to jarring halt before a final declaration on the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention had been completed. That issue has been largely laid to rest.
Last week, Swiss, Dutch and Malaysian officials brought back the tradition of diplomatic bowling, a quirk apparently unique to this treaty’s meetings and stretching back at least to 1998, and perhaps to 1996 depending on whom you ask.