H.E. Mr Fernando Arias, Permanent Representative of the Kingdom of Spain to the OPCW, after being recommended by the Executive Council as the next Director-General of the OPCW Technical Secretariat.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — 19 October 2017 — The Eighty-Sixth Session of the Executive Council (EC) of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) concluded on 13 October with a consensus recommendation that the Twenty-Second Session of the Conference of the States Parties appoint H.E. Mr Fernando Arias, Permanent Representative of the Kingdom of Spain to the OPCW, as the next Director-General of the OPCW Technical Secretariat for a four year term of office to begin on 25 July 2018. The annual Conference of the States Parties will take place from 27 November to 1 December 2017 at the World Forum in The Hague, The Netherlands.
Background
As the implementing body for the Chemical Weapons Convention, the OPCW oversees the global endeavour to permanently and verifiably eliminate chemical weapons. Since the Convention’s entry into force in 1997 – and with its 192 States Parties – it is the most successful disarmament treaty eliminating an entire class of weapons of mass destruction.
Over 96 per cent of all chemical weapon stockpiles declared by possessor States have been destroyed under OPCW verification. For its extensive efforts in eliminating chemical weapons, the OPCW received the 2013 Nobel Prize for Peace.