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"This amendment was tough to negotiate, but we finally succeeded in serving the interests of the environment", said Bakary Kante, President of the meeting and Director of Environment in Senegal's Ministry of Environment.

The amendment bans the export of hazardous wastes destined for final disposal with immediate effect. The ban on wastes destined for recovery or recycling operations will be phased in before taking complete effect after 31 December 1997.

Support for the ban was based on the need to protect developing countries from unwanted imports. Developing countries lack the financial, technical, legal, and institutional capacity for monitoring the transboundary movement of hazardous wastes and preventing illegal imports. An export ban will help to remedy the weakness of these countries' existing import bans. It will also act as an incentive to minimize the generation of hazardous wastes at source.

The debate over the ban was complicated by the difficulties in classifying a number of wastes in the Convention and the characteristics that make them hazardous. Further work is still needed on this. The Technical Working Group will meet next year to examine such technical questions as posed by COP-3 in time for COP-4 in 1997.

Among other decisions, the report of the first evaluation of the Convention's effectiveness was accepted by the meeting. The report concluded that the Convention has played a largely beneficial catalytic role, and it has had considerable influence on the agenda and programmes of most States. Only one "major player" (the US) is not yet a Party to the Convention but it is participating fully in the work of the Convention. The need for adequate financial resources for the Secretariat and the need for Parties to give more attention to adopting legislation and establishing institutional and administrative infrastructure for implementing the Convention at the national level were also emphasized.

The meeting also adopted tools to help Parties implement the Convention, including "Model National Legislation for the Transboundary Movements and Management of Hazardous Wastes" and a "Manual for the Implementation of the Convention", as well as an agreement to strengthen regional capacities by establishing regional or subregional training centres for training and technology transfer. However, due to a lack of time the establishment of a monitoring and compliance system for overseeing the Convention's implementation will be taken up again next year by the COP's Legal Working Group. An Ad hoc Working Group was asked to make all efforts possible to finalize a draft protocol on liability and compensation for consideration and adoption at COP-4..

The Basel Convention was adopted in March 1989 and entered into force in May 1992. It has been ratified by 91 countries plus the EC.