At the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) Ninth Review Conference in 2022, States Parties agreed to establish a new Working Group on the Strengthening of the Convention, which will operate during the current Intersessional Period (ISP). The agenda for the Working Group includes discussion on, among other things, compliance and verification. This is the first time in 20 years that verification has explicitly been added to the BWC agenda, initiating a new process that opens a window of opportunity for States Parties to advance work around verification and compliance.
To facilitate discussion on verification, this UNIDIR event will consider three important elements related to verification: first, the focus and function of verification, drawing a UNIDIR report on this topic; second, possible models of BWC verification; and finally, the event will consider the role of science and technology in the process of verification.
Agenda
- Alonso Francisco Martínez Ruiz, Counsellor at the Permanent Mission of Mexico to International Organizations, and Friend of the Chair
- James Revill, Head of WMD Programme at UNIDIR
- Matthew Shearer, Associate Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security
The event will be moderated by Maria Garzon Maceda, Project Coordinator at UNIDIR
Where and when
In person in Geneva, on 6 December from 13.15 – 14.45, Room III, Building A, Palais de Nations and online.
Participants
The event is open to State representatives and experts working on or interested in organizational, institutional and financial issues related to the BWC.
Registration
In-person participants do not need to register. To get the link to the online event, please register at: https://forms.office.com/e/npPW77RSbi.
For any questions, please contact Ms. Clarisse Bertherat at clarisse.bertherat@un.org.