CTED Executive Director Coninsx addresses the High-level conference participants in the UN General Assembly on 28 June 2018.
Photo: UN Photo/Mark Garten
During the last week of June 2018, Heads of counter-terrorism agencies of Member States gathered for a high-level conference at the United Nations in New York. Under the auspices of United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, the conference was organized by the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism (OCT). Assistant Secretary-General Michèle Coninsx, Executive Director of the Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED), chaired the conference’s first session, which focused on “Opportunities and challenges in strengthening international cooperation through the sharing of information, expertise, and resources.”
CTED was also actively engaged in several of the 25 side events that took place on the margins of the high-level conference, either as co-organizer or participant. The side events of which CTED was a co-organizer included “Lawful access to digital data across borders and database of counter-terrorism Competent National Authorities” (together with the Permanent Mission of the United States to the United Nations, the International Association of Prosecutors, and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime); “International cooperation to combat the use of the Internet for terrorist purposes: Opportunities and challenges” (with the Permanent Missions of Bahrain, Belarus, Egypt, Estonia, Kenya, Mexico, Republic of Korea, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and the United Emirates to the United Nations, OCT, and UNODC); “The United Nations Compendium of good practices on the protection of critical infrastructure against terrorist attacks” (with the Permanent Mission of Japan to the United Nations, INTERPOL, and OCT); “Countering and preventing violent extremism through communications and empowerment strategies involving youth” (with the Permanent Missions of Finland and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan to the United Nations, and the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations, on behalf of the CTITF Working Group on Communications, chaired by the UN Department of Public Information); “Disrupting terrorist travel: Implementation of Passenger Name Record (PNR) and Advance Passenger Information (API) requirements of UNSCR 2396 (2017)” (with the Permanent Missions of the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States to the United Nations); and “The United Nations Compendium of good and recommended practices for the responsible use and sharing of biometrics in identifying terrorists” (with the Permanent Mission of Australia to the United Nations, and the Biometrics Institute). More info on these side events can be found here. Photos from the side events are available on CTED’s Flickr page.
Additionally, CTED Executive Director Coninsx held numerous bilateral meetings with representatives of Member States (photos available here and here), as well as gave a media briefing.
CTED Executive Director Michèle Coninsx’ remarks (28 June 2018).
Statements by other UN principals are available here.