Michael Biontino is a retired German diplomat and arms control and disarmament expert, most recently holding the position of the Permanent Representative to the Conference on Disarmament (CD) and Ambassador for Global Arms Control and Disarmament Affairs.
Ambassador Biontino led negotiations for the German delegation at the 2015 NPT Review Conference and subsequent Preparatory Committees. In addition, serving as chair of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) meeting of experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons (LAWS) in 2015 and 2016 and as Chair of the Committee of the Whole of the Biological Weapons Convention Review Conference in 2016.
In 2017, Michael was President of the Convention on Cluster Munitions and coordinated meetings of the Conference on Disarmament on the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty and Negative Security Assurances (NSA) 2016-2018. Alongside this, Biontino organized a variety of track 1.5 arms control and disarmament events on LAWS, nuclear risk reduction, outer space, explosive weapons in populated areas and NSAs.
Beyond Geneva, Ambassador Biontino has extensive experience in security policy, arms control and disarmament affairs. He has served in the Department for Arms Control and Disarmament of the Federal Foreign Office and German missions in Iran (during the war between Iraq and Iran), Moscow (during Perestroika and German Unification), New York (during the German membership of the UN Security Council), Brussels NATO (during the NATO enlargement process) and Addis Ababa.
