Disarmament in Review
Last week, the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) concluded a series of virtual onboarding sessions for qualified experts, expert consultants, and points of contact for analytical laboratories nominated by their Governments to the roster for the United Nations Secretary-General’s Mechanism (UNSGM) for the investigation of alleged use of chemical, biological and toxin weapons.
Over the course of the sessions, participants learned about the background and mandate of the UNSGM, the different roles and expectations of the respective roster categories, the training programme for nominated experts, the external quality assessment exercises for nominated laboratories and past investigations conducted under the UNSGM. Participants were also given an overview of the UNSGM Guidelines and Procedures, which were endorsed by the General Assembly and set out how a UNSGM investigation should be conducted.
From 8 June to 17 June, five onboarding sessions were held to accommodate the many different time zones of experts and laboratories on the UNSGM roster. As this was the first time UNODA conducted these onboarding sessions, all persons currently nominated to the UNSGM roster were invited to participate. Going forward, the sessions are to be held annually for newly nominated experts and laboratories.
For more information, please reach out to the UNODA team in support of the UNSGM at UNSGM@un.org.
