VERTIC’s Senior Legal Officer, Yasemin Balci, participated in the First Annual Steering Committee Meeting of EU CBRN Centres of Excellence Project 61 in Vientiane, Laos on Friday 14 December 2018. The meeting provided an opportunity to discuss the results of the first year of the project and plan for its second year.

VERTIC’s Senior Legal Officer, Yasemin Balci, participated in the First Annual Steering Committee Meeting of EU CBRN Centres of Excellence Project 61 in Vientiane, Laos on Friday 14 December 2018. The meeting provided an opportunity to discuss the results of the first year of the project and plan for its second year.

The purpose of Project 61 is to address outstanding chemical safety and security issues in areas of legislation, prevention, detection, response and recovery. The project addresses not only the sound management of chemicals and their wastes, but also takes emerging chemical issues into account.

The five components of Project 61 are:

  • Judicial reinforcement with respect to the sound management of chemicals and their wastes;
  • Enhanced capacity for prevention of chemical incidents including both safety and security aspects;
  • Enhanced capacity for the region’s mobile detection possibilities and chemical testing laboratories;
  • Measures to enhance the region’s preparedness and response capacity to chemical incidents;
  • Measures to enhance the region’s recovery capacity after a chemical incident.

The Project 61 consortium consists of international experts from Public Health England (PHE) (UK), Sustainable Criminal Justice Solutions (SCJS) (UK), the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) (Netherlands), the International Security and Emergency Management Institute (Slovakia) and VERTIC (UK).

The participating countries in Project 61 are Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Viet Nam.