The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) recently held a training seminar for customs officials in Eastern Europe to strengthen their ability to uphold the global ban on chemical weapon.
The seminar, held in Krakow, Poland on Sept. 27-30, featured 32 participants from such nations as Albania, Armenia, Belarus, Czech Republic, Georgia, Hungary, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania, former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.
The seminar included a discussion on provisions to regulate chemical transfers and controls that surround cross-border movement of scheduled chemicals. Attendees shared their own experiences while offering technical expertise on the practical issues each nation has faced. Attendees also discussed the control of Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) scheduled chemicals in ports and free zones, risk assessments, trans-shipments, and software for customs services.
“Customs authorities are the main, and often sole, source of information about imports and exports of scheduled chemicals,” Vaclovas Semaskevicius, implementation support officer for OPCW, said. “Subsequently, these authorities are crucial to fulfilling countries’ obligations under the CWC. Their work is vital to preventing the re-emergence of chemical weapons and reassuring States Parties that scheduled chemicals are not being diverted for prohibited purposes.”
Each attendee received a handbook on chemicals, the online scheduled chemicals database and a brochure on most-traded scheduled chemicals.