Columbia International Affairs Online: Working Papers

CIAO DATE: 03/2011

Safety and Security in the Biotechnological Age

Marc Finaud, Sunjay Chandiramani

July 2010

The Geneva Centre for Security Policy

Abstract

To discuss the current status of the security of biotechnology and to analyse the creation of possible structures and institutions to better serve the current biosecurity regime, the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP) hosted an international policy workshop entitled “The Safety and Security of Biotechnology” on 25 June 2009. The workshop was jointly organised with the support of the Managing Global Insecurity Project (MGI), a partnership managed by the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University, the Center on International Cooperation at New York University and the Brookings Institution. The goal of MGI is to provide recommendations and to generate the momentum required to rebuild the global partnerships and international institutions needed to meet 21st-century trans-border challenges and threats. Among those threats, high on the international security agenda are the risk of spread of diseases caused by natural, accidental or deliberate events, including the misuse of biology or biotechnology, up to the use of biological weapons. Further support from the Governments of Switzerland and Norway is hereby acknowledged.