JRC-ITU, US hosting CNS workshop
In March 2016, the Joint Research Centre’s Institute for Transuranium Elements (JRC-ITU) and the US will co-host the 2016 Counter Nuclear Smuggling (CNS) Workshop in Karlsruhe, Germany.
The workshop is due to focus on the relationship between law enforcement investigations and the technical toolsets that may be applied to support a nuclear smuggling investigation and provide evidence for successful prosecution.
Building on previous years’ Nuclear Security Summits and previous CNS workshops (which have hosted participants from 38 countries in addition to international organisations), and in the run up to the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit Workshop in Washington DC (31 March to 1 April), the three-day workshop will include demonstrations of CNS capabilities outlined in the 2014 ‘Statement of Activity and Cooperation to Counter Nuclear Smuggling’ supported by 20 summit participating states.
Via a series of presentations, exercises and demonstrations, the workshop is set to address the state-of-the-art approaches and technical challenges associated with the detection, response, nuclear forensic analysis and law enforcement investigation of nuclear smuggling incidents.
These include strengthening international capabilities to counter nuclear smuggling and reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism; detecting nuclear and other radioactive materials out of regulatory control, and analysing seized material to trace its illicit movement; interministerial co-ordination in the areas of radiation detection, law enforcement investigations, and radiological crime scene management; the application of nuclear forensic analysis and interpretational techniques to support a nuclear smuggling investigation and identify similarities across cases; information sharing mechanisms to counter the smuggling of nuclear and other radioactive material; and resources and efforts to sustain CNS capabilities.
