With offices in Austin, Texas, and Hamburg, Germany, the Sunshine Project worked by exposing research on biological and chemical weapons. Typically, it accessed documents under the Freedom of Information Act and other open records laws, publishing reports and encouraging action to reduce the risk of biological warfare. It tracked the construction of high containment laboratory facilities and the dual-use activities of the U.S. biodefense program. Another focus was on documenting government-sponsored research and development of incapacitating "non-lethal" weapons, such as the chemical used by Russia to end the Moscow theater hostage crisis in 2002. The Sunshine Project was also active in meetings of the Biological Weapons Convention, the main international treaty prohibiting biological warfare.