Sunshine So Far:
A Brief History of the Project

The Sunshine Project came into existence when Jan van Aken, a German biologist, crossed paths with Edward Hammond, an American policy researcher, and Susana Pimiento, a Colombian lawyer working in the US. Finding that we shared an intense commitment to avert the dangers of new weapons stemming form advances in biotechnology, we came together to form a small new international non-governmental organization to work on biological weapons issues.

But van Aken had a head start. In late 1999, he formed the Sunshine Project, e.V., a German non-profit association. The Project's name, a suggestion by van Aken's former co-worker Charles Margulis, is a reference to the fact that many biological weapons are quickly broken down and rendered harmless by exposure to bright sunlight.

Following telephone, e-mail, and finally, face-to-face conversations that started in late 1999, in early 2000 we made the decision to bring our activities together. With a joint program and commitment to build an international team and organization, Hammond and Pimiento set about establishing the Sunshine Project in the US as a non-profit corporation.

We assembled offices in Seattle, Washington and Hamburg, Germany. In April 2000, the Project began program work in earnest.

Initial funding was generously provided by the Hatzfeldt Foundation, the HKH Foundation and C. Deans Crystle Foundation to take up a three part work agenda on biological weapons: human genomics, treaty compliance, and biotechnology in the drug war. (Please see our program descriptions on this website for more detailed information.)

First out of the gate was the Project's work on biological weapons designed to eradicate illicit crops. The Project is seeking a global ban on the use of biological agents in forced crop eradication. The Sunshine Project brought this issue into the intergovernmental limelight in May, 2000 in advocacy efforts at the UN Biodiversity Convention's meeting in Nairobi, Kenya.

In addition to a number of press releases and publications, the Project followed this initial advocacy work by cosponsoring two seminars on biological crop eradication in Quito, Ecuador and Bogotá, Colombia in October, 2000.

The seminars in South America forged an alliance to stop the use of biological weapons in drug crop eradication between very diverse nonprofit groups working on human rights, indigenous peoples' rights, peace, drug policy, environment, biotechnology, and biological weapons.

The Project's work on treaty compliance is also underway. The Project is seeking a reinforced international consensus against biological weapons.

The Project is raising questions about certain uses of genetic engineering in defensive biological weapons research and is sparking much-needed public debate on the limits of military use of biotechnology and dangers of some types of defensive research conducted in Western countries.

For example, research conducted by the Sunshine Project revealed that the German Army is experimenting with antibiotic resistant tularemia bacteria, a project that has been heavily criticised in the German media. Despite being a defensive project, we consider it to be highly critical as it has obvious offensive applications.

In late September, 2000, the Project's US office moved from Seattle to Austin, Texas. The Sunshine Project has a number of publications and activities planned for 2001, including seminars in Europe, the US, and briefings for intergovernmental meetings.