EAM Jaishankar underlines India's commitment to full BWC implementation

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External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Monday addressed the inaugural conference on the occasion of '50 Years of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC)

Speaking to experts and representatives from over 80 countries, Jaishankar discussed the need to modernise the BWC and the critical role of the Global South in shaping its future. He outlined India's record of ensuring non-proliferation of sensitive and dual-use goods & technologies, the vaccine Maitri initiative during the COVID-19 pandemic and the proposal of a National Implementation Framework that covers the identification of high-risk agents, oversight of dual-use research, domestic reporting, incident management, and continuous training.

Jaishankar highlighted in his remarks that they strive to modernise the BWC, the Global South must take ownership--preparing wisely for future challenges.

In a post on X, he emphasised the need for ensuring that BWC remains the guardrail between innovation and misuse in the life sciences in an uncertain international security environment.

He noted how BWC lacks basic institutional structures like the absence of a compliance system, permanent technical body or tracking mechanism for new scientific developments and emphasised working to modernise the Convention, stronger compliance measures and strengthening global capacity.

Jaishankar highlighted the need for securing international cooperation as central to any solution, considering biological threat moves fast, defies borders and overwhelms systems and ensuring that the Global South shapes the next 50 years of BWC as it has most to gain from stronger biosecurity and also the most to contribute.

In line with its strong commitment to disarmament and non-proliferation, India is organising an international conference to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Biological Weapons Convention, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said.

Experts from over 80 countries of the Global South and representatives of regional and international organisations will take part in the conference on December 1-2 at the Sushma Swaraj Bhawan, New Delhi, MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in a post on X.