BANGKOK: The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the government of Thailand are hosting a regional course for customs officials from Tuesday through Friday in Bangkok.
The training course will include exercises to enhance the capabilities of customs offices and officials to implement applicable transfer regimens in the management of chemicals entering and exiting their borders.
The participants will act as training personnel following the session so that the measures and practices covered in this training session can be applied to countries that are party to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) within their respective custom’s offices.
The OPCW said the customs process between countries plays a practical role in implementation of measures from the CWC and helps to eliminate or clarify any discrepancies in the scheduled chemical shipments that are to be received between the export and importing process.
Main topics that will be covered in the course include information on transfer regimes and the CWC provisions related to that process, information sources and databases, practical exercises for the identification of chemicals and the skills necessary to pass this information to their respective offices.
The CWC is an international treaty that prohibits the use, development and stockpile of chemical weapons. The OPCW acts as its enforcement organization and takes part in regional training courses related to the convention and in fact-finding missions to determine the validity of a report of convention violation.