Our international activities
In recent years, international cooperation on global disarmament, peacekeeping and conflict management in crisis-hit regions has grown in importance. The SPIEZ LABORATORY is now recognised worldwide as a leading centre of expertise in these areas, and has become an effective instrument of Swiss foreign and security policy. The SPIEZ LABORATORY is also an important partner for the UN, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons OPCW, the UN environment programme UNEP, the International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA, as well as the World Health Organisation WHO. The SPIEZ LABORATORY also contributes to the NATO “Partnership for Peace” programme PfP.
SPIEZ LABORATORY experts play a significant role on the international stage:
- As weapons’ inspectors in Iraq on behalf of UNSCOM, set up in 1991. Under their supervision, large quantities of Iraqi chemical weapons were destroyed in the first half of the 1990s.
- Training weapon inspectors between 2001 and 2003 on behalf of UNMOVIC, successor to UNSCOM.
- Analysis of risks to the public from depleted uranium munition in the Balkans between 1999 and 2000, as well as in Kuwait in 2002.
- Testing the quality of drinking water in Afghanistan in 2002.
- Participation between 1998 and 2001 in a project on the environmentally-safe disposal of toxic chemicals, as part of the PfP programme and in cooperation with the Albanian authorities.
Furthermore, the SPIEZ LABORATORY continues to participate in various international arms control programmes. It is an OPCW-designated laboratory and is heavily involved in global efforts to implement a ban on chemical weapons. In the traditional spirit of the Swiss policy of good offices and the Security through Cooperation strategy, the SPIEZ LABORATORY makes a significant contribution to global peacekeeping and conflict management.