The first session of the 2020 GGE on LAWS will be held on 21-25 September 2020 in Room XIX of the Palais des Nations, Geneva. The session can be followed virtually on UN Web TV.

The second session will be held on 2-6 November 2020.

Registration

Delegates who will participate in person or take the floor remotely through Interprefy are requested to register on Indico by Friday 18 September. Kindly choose one of the three options for mode of participation: “primary speaker in-person”, “alternate speaker in-person” and “remote speaker”. Please note that, unless given permission in advance to have an additional delegate in the room, the primary in-person speaker and the in-person alternate speaker must alternate and cannot be present in the room at the same time.

Delegates who already have a UN grounds pass must also register on Indico in order to attend the meeting in person, in line with UNOG guidelines and regulations in response to COVID-19.

Note verbals or official letters (in the case of civil society and academia) are required to register on Indico. Kindly send note verbals or official letters to ccw@un.org no later than Friday 18 September 10AM Geneva time listing the names and the titles of only those delegates that will participant in person and those who will take the floor remotely, as well as the mode of speech (in-person primary, in-person alternate, or remote through Interprefy) of each speaker. For remote speakers, it is important to indicate in the note verbal the email address to which the link to Interprefy should be sent.

Those who will follow the proceedings remotely on UN Web TV without taking the floor should not register on Indico nor be included in the note verbal or official letter. Live coverage of the meeting can be accessed without prior registration and is offered in all six official languages of the UN.

In-person participation

Due to distancing requirements and reduced capacity in all conference rooms at the Palais des Nations, each delegation is requested to nominate only one delegate to participate in the meeting in person in Room XIX. Any leftover seats in the room after the in-person delegate of each and every delegation has been confirmed will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis to delegations who express their interest in having one more delegate present in Room XIX.

Kindly note, however, that the secondary rows behind the seats with microphones are sealed off to ensure distancing and cannot be occupied.

Interprefy

To allow for remote speaking and simultaneous interpretation into 6 languages, Interprefy will be used for the entirety of the meeting on 21-25 September.

Remote participation through Interprefy must be coordinated in advance with the Secretariat as indicated above and cannot be requested in-session. To keep Interprefy connections to a manageable number from a conference management perspective, we kindly ask delegations to request Interprefy access only for representatives that will take the floor.

Kindly note that it is the responsibility of each remote speaker to establish a strong, stable internet connection throughout the delivery of the statement, to ensure optimal sound quality to allow for simultaneous interpretation. Please find attached a short guide on the internet connection and technical equipment requirements for Interprefy.

In order to maintain the duration of a session of three hours, delivery of statements through Interprefy should be limited to 30 minutes per session. Longer use of Interprefy per session would result in the reduction of the entire session duration to 2 hours. Regardless of the duration of each session, there will be two sessions per day, which equals at least 4 hours of meeting per day.