Dr Jean Pascal Zanders is founder of The Trench and an independent researcher and consultant.
He specialises in questions of armament and disarmament, covering chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons, as well as space policy. Using foresighting strategies, he researches the meaning of disarmament in a fast-evolving security context, including the longer-term future of the Chemical and Biological and Toxin Weapons Conventions, the preconditions for new global and regional disarmament initiatives, and related security developments. He participates in working groups studying opportunities for non-conventional weapon disarmament in the Middle East.
His interest also goes to the internal dynamics of a terrorist or criminal entity seeking to acquire a chemical or biological weapons capability.
He furthermore develops educational strategies and courses for security, disarmament and technology transfer controls and designs and runs tabletop exercises.
He was a Senior Research Fellow at the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EU-ISS) in Paris from June 2008 until May 2013. Since 2009 he has participated as an expert to the Belgian and EU Delegations in the BTWC and CWC meetings.
Before that he was Project Leader of the Chemical and Biological Warfare Project at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) from October 1996 until August 2003 and Director of the Geneva-based BioWeapons Prevention Project (BWPP) between April 2003 and May 2008. At the BWPP he was also entrusted with the implementation of the first European Union Joint Action in support of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (2006-2008).
He has published extensively on chemical and biological weapon and other security issues in English, Dutch and French since 1986.
He holds Masters Degrees in Germanic Philology-Linguistics (1980) and Political Sciences (1992) and a PhD in Political Sciences (1996) from the Free University of Brussels (VUB).
Affiliations
Member of the Council of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs since 2013.
Inaugural member of the Advisory Board on Education and Outreach (ABEO) for the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) – 2016-2018; reappointed for 2nd term 2019-2021. ABEO Chairperson for 2016 – 2019.
Senior Research Associate with the Fondation pour la recherche stratégique, Paris, France
Research Associate with the Centre on Conflict, Development & Peacebuilding, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland