This morning, Ambassador Leonardo Bencini took the floor during the Sixth Session of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) held in Geneva. Italy reaffirmed its commitment to multilateral efforts to strengthen compliance and verification under the Convention, promoting an approach grounded in science and international cooperation.
The Ambassador emphasized that verification represents “probably the thorniest issue to address” and noted that, despite significant progress on control mechanisms, much remains to be done before a fully operational verification regime can be established. In this context, he expressed support for the proposal to establish an open-ended working group tasked with defining its mandate and terms of reference and developing an overall framework for an effective verification system.
Ambassador Bencini also highlighted the importance of the International Cooperation and Assistance (ICA) and Science and Technology (S&T) mechanisms, which are essential for providing technical advice, fostering dialogue with industry and academia, and supporting science-based political decision-making. He further cautioned against relying on past solutions or drawing parallels with chemical or nuclear weapons, underlining the particular challenges posed by the verification of biological weapons.
The full statement is available at the following link and video.
