There are four weeks left to submit abstracts for presenting at the IAEA International Conference on Nuclear Security: Commitments and Actions, to be held in Vienna from 5-9 December. The conference will discuss the international community’s experiences and achievements on strengthening nuclear security and will identify future directions and priorities. It will build on the outcomes of the first International Conference on Nuclear Security: Enhancing Global Efforts, held in 2013.
“It’s important that the international community supports capacity building to help sustain nuclear security regimes and shares good practices and information to promote a stronger nuclear security culture,” said Khammar Mrabit, Director of the Nuclear Security Division at the IAEA.
The flyer of the conference is available here and the conference announcement is here.
Though a great deal of progress has been made since the 2013 conference to counter the risk of nuclear terrorism, there remains real international concern not only about the possibility of nuclear or other radioactive material falling into the hands of terrorists or other criminals, but also about the risk of sabotage at nuclear facilities.
IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano recently encouraged Member States to be represented at the conference at the ministerial level. Besides ministers, the conference will bring together policymakers, senior officials and nuclear security experts to formulate and exchange views on future directions and priorities for nuclear security and how these may evolve. While the exact scope of the technical sessions will depend on the abstracts received the technical sessions will likely deal with a diverse range of topics including legislative and regulatory nuclear security framework, threat and risk assessment, physical protection of nuclear material and facilities, nuclear security culture, information and computer security, nuclear forensics and strengthening nuclear security networks, exercises, and responses. A full list of topics can be found here.
The conference will also contribute to identifying Member States’ needs for support from the IAEA to establish effective and sustainable nuclear security regimes.
“The results of this conference will serve as an important input for the preparation of the IAEA’s next Nuclear Security Plan, which will cover the period 2018–2021,” Mrabit said.
