Dr Jean Pascal Zanders (Belgium) is an independent researcher/consultant on disarmament and security questions. He heads The Trench, a research initiative dedicated to the future of disarmament.  He is also a Senior Research Associate at the Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique (Paris). He has participated as an expert to the Belgian and EU Delegations in the BTWC and CWC meetings since 2009. From January 2016 until December 2019, he chaired the Advisory Board on Education and Outreach (ABEO) of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and remained a member until December 2021.

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.