David Nanopoulos (OLA) on the 2026 Treaty Event - Press Conference

Great. We are delighted to bring back for another year our friend David Nanopoulos, who is the head of the Treaty Section of the Office of Legal Affairs. He will brief you on the annual treaty event. David, to you.

Thank you, Steph. Good afternoon. It's good to see you again. to brief you indeed on the annual treaty event that will take place next week during high level week. So it's from Tuesday 22 to Friday 25. This is an event we have been organizing every year since 2000. And the Secretary General every year invite heads of state and head of government to take the opportunity of their presence in New York to take action on behalf of their countries on one of the more than 600 multilateral treaties deposited with him. The theme of this year event is promoting multilateral treaties, safeguarding humanity. In his invitation letter, the Secretary General stressed that the multilateral treaty framework is precisely in place for the uplifting and safeguarding of humanity. And the goals of universal participation and effective implementation of multilateral treaties are within our collective reach. Under UN auspices, states have adopted hundreds of multilateral treaties covering basically all aspects of human activity, protection of the environment, disarmament, law of the sea, human rights. And the Secretary General for those treaties plays the role of depository, not only this role, but that's what we're talking about here, is in charge of basically participation in the treaty, and basically is the custodian of that text. And so that's what the treaty event is all about. It's about participation in those treaties. Since I'm here every year, I would like to take also the opportunity to give you very briefly a couple of highlights in the field of multilateral treaties. One is about the protection of the ocean. Last year at our treaty event, 21 states participated in the treaty event and a lot of them took action on the BBNJ agreement, which you know, which is this agreement related to the protection of the ocean. And since then, on 17 January 2026, it entered into force. It became an active treaty. This was something historic. It happened in over two years, which is very short. The SG, when this happened, highlighted the historic significance of this event and invited states to join the existing 94 parties. This is what will happen next week. We expect that many states will actually join the BBNG agreement. Another big event was relating to cybercrime, cybercriminality. After the treaty event on 25, 26 October, a ceremony was organized in Hanoi in Vietnam for the opening for signature of the UN Convention against cybercrime it was a beautiful ceremony and on this occasion 71 states and one international organization signed the treaty it's significant it's the biggest we've had in over 10 years the As of today, 82 signatories and three ratifications have been gathered for this treaty. We expect a lot of action next week during the treaty event, also for cybercrime. And now, just to conclude, a new UN treaty in the field of trade. It's a UN convention on negotiable cargo documents. I won't speak too much about it. because it is not something where you can expect any action next week. It's opening for signature the month after in Accra in Ghana. So to conclude on logistical arrangements, it is happening, the treaty event, in the Kuwaiti port area from Tuesday to Friday next week. It's a series of short ceremonies when you will have Minister of Foreign Affairs, Head of State, and Head of Government taking action publicly on behalf of their country. It's open to UN accredited press. and you can find all information not only on the event but on all multilateral treaties deposited with the Secretary General on the website of the treaty section. I know you go there every day, but just in case, it's treaties.un.org. We hope many of you will participate in the treaty event. We know many states will do so, and I'm here if you have any question. Thank you.

Thank you. Any questions? Yes, Eric in the pen.

Hi. Do you expect any actions related to the Rome Statute, the TPNW, and the CTBT?

I do. But I won't tell you which state and what. The reason is that we don't want to out heads of states, head of government today. We have a number of ceremonies in the pipeline. But I don't want to tell you this will happen, and then there's a last minute-- oops. Exactly. Something like that happened at the last minute, and then it happens to be next week. But those are among the highlighted treaties, and yes, you can anticipate also actions in this field.

Thank you, Pam, and then we'll go to the back.

Thank you for the briefing. It's Pamela Fort from U.S. News & World Report. On BBNJ, do you expect more? There's, what, 145 signatures now?

No, no, listen, for BBNJ now, what matters, because it's an active treaty, I mean, signature is extremely important, but--

94 parties.

Exactly. The treaty is not even open for signature now. So now it's ratification, the parties. When you become party to this treaty, it is creating rights and obligation from the country. The countries now are moving from the participation to the implementation, to change the life of people, to change the life of countries. And we expect quite a number of new countries to do so. We have an important event that will happen early next year, which is the first meeting of the parties.

Yeah, January is the conference of parties.

So you know everything. And so that will be an opportunity to have even more countries actually being there as full participants.

And you'll know when somebody goes and signs this week.

Yes, of course.

And where will it be?

It will be in the Kuwaiti border area.

But I mean, will you let us know?

So how do we communicate? So basically, what we do is that we do that every day. And because it's a public event, every day it's done. We have-- we send legal document, but also the pictures. And also, we send every evening on the website and to everybody that wants it by e-mail an update of what happened that day. So you will be informed in real time.

All right. And at the conference of parties, you expect who?

This I don't know, because I'm not-- you should ask my fantastic colleagues. But we certainly expect all the parties to be there, because that's a conference of parties.

I know all the people at the BMJ event. during next week.

I cannot respond to that. That's maybe something that could be organized by some states or by colleagues, but I don't know about that. I'm in my silo of the treaty event today. OK. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Yes, you go ahead.

Merci, David. I just have a question. Do you think that there will be any work done on the UN conventions of the law of the sea? at the treaty event, considering everything that's going on with global shipping, both in the Black Sea, the Strait of Hormuz, and now the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

Well, yes and no. The BBNJ is an agreement under UNCLOS. So everything that is happening in this field is actually in the realm of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. But on the convention itself, in terms of participation, I'm not expecting anything at this stage. We're open for business, but there's nothing I expect at the treaty event specifically on UNCLOS right now.

Jessica, then Minou.

Hi, I was wondering when do you expect that there will be a treaty on autonomous weapons and why isn't there one already?

I certainly cannot respond to this question because I don't know. Basically, if you want to look at treaties in real terms, as you are. You have a problem, when does it change people's life? You have three stages. The treaty has to be negotiated. They need to be a political momentum, a forum. It could be within the UN, outside the UN. Within the UN, we have hundreds of different type of modalities, and you launch a process. Then the second stage, after the treaty is adopted, but it's just a piece of paper at this stage, is the participation, is for states domestically to actually join the treaty, ratify, accept the rights and obligations. Then it will enter into force and be implemented, and that's where it will begin to change the life of people. My job as depository is in the middle, meaning the participation. We work only on treaties when we begin our job when the treaties are adopted. And what you're asking me, which is a very important question, is the previous stage, which is launching a negotiation, where do we have the negotiation, who is doing that. This is not what the depository does. So that's why I cannot respond to your question. If there is such a treaty one day, we will then intervene to allow states to sign and ratify it.

Minlon.

So for PPNJ, China, Chile, and the Belgian, they have already put forward their offers to host the permanent secretariat. I guess this would be decided during the COP1.

So I can give you exactly the same response than to your colleague. This is about the implementation of the treaty. This is for when member states will make decision on how the treaty will operate. Again, this is absolutely not something the depository is working on. We're in between. We're between the negotiation and the implementation. The job of the ISG as depository is here on participation. What happens afterwards or before is really not within the realm of what we do, so I really cannot give you an answer.

On that note. Debbie, thank you very much and good luck with the treaty event.

Thanks so much.