Mexico City, 7 November 2019. On 7 November 2019, the XXVI Session of the General Conference of the Agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean (OPANAL) was held. It was chaired by the Ambassador of Peru in Mexico, Mr. Julio Garro Gálvez.

The Conference adopted sixteen resolutions, including: the election, by acclamation, of Ambassador Flavio Roberto Bonzanini (Brazil) as the next Secretary-General of OPANAL, from 1 January 2020; the election of three Member States of the Council –Belize, Honduras and Nicaragua– for a four-year period, from 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2023; and the election of Argentina, Belize, Brazil, Ecuador and Uruguay, as Members of the Committee on Contributions and Administrative and Budgetary Matters (CCAAP), for the same period.

Other issues that were discussed during the General Conference are:

• Interpretative declarations made by States Parties to Additional Protocols I and II to the Treaty of Tlatelolco
• Education for disarmament and non-proliferation
• Control System of the Treaty of Tlatelolco
• OPANAL coordinations in Geneva, New York and Vienna
• Budget and scale of assessed contributions for the financial year 2020

The General Conference is the supreme body of OPANAL and, therefore, is the one that makes the most important decisions for the Agency. It is integrated by all the Contracting Parties to the Treaty of Tlatelolco, that is, all the 33 States of Latin America and the Caribbean, and holds regular sessions every two years, and may also hold special sessions whenever it is so provided for in the Treaty of Tlatelolco, or when circumstances so require in the opinion of the Council.