Welcome to OPCW Academic Forum!
The year 2007 marks the 10th anniversary of the entry into force of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). The OPCW has initiated a series of events to promote the public interest in the work and achievements of the CWC. The OPCW Academic Forum is an integral part of this process. You are invited to take part in this academic event.
The Forum aims to bring together leading academic experts, practitioners, diplomats and policy-makers. It examines the OPCW/CWC’s history, the political and technical challenges it is confronted with today, as well as its place and role in the overall global non-proliferation network. Its objective is to demonstrate the OPCW as a successful actor in multilateralism and non-proliferation. In this way, the Forum contributes to the discussion of issues concerning (chemical) disarmament and the role of the OPCW/CWC during the next decade.
The Forum will also discuss how the OPCW may adapt to the new security environment and the changing nature of chemical industry, including new chemicals and processes. Based on the papers that will be presented during the Forum and the discussions they bring about, forum proceedings will be published.
The Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction (CWC) has a strong scientific basis that requires structural and long-term feedback with different parts of the scientific and technical communities. These different communities can play interconnected and supplementary roles: industry as a partner in the implementation process, research and academia as a community that needs to be aware of the norms and constraints set by the CWC and at the same time that may discover new things that affect the treaty and political sciences with regard to the role of the CWC in the overall non-proliferation and disarmament architecture as well as with regard to counter-terrorism.
The Forum is intended as a starting point for a structural scientific feedback relationship for the OPCW, to be activated when needed (for example in the from of bi-annual events/activities) and permanently available to the international non-proliferation community to interact with the OPCW, thus complementing the convention’s mechanisms.