space Press Releases, News Stories

by Daniel Pruzin, International Environmental Reporter, BNA

Speaking at ceremonies marking the 10th anniversary of the Basel Convention, former UNEP executive director Mostafa Tolba said the Basel Convention will not have its hoped-for impact as long as the United States remains outside of the agreement.

The aim of the convention, which was adopted in Basel in 1989, is to reduce cross-border movements of hazardous waste to a minimal level, improve controls on the movement of waste as well as prevent illegal traffic, and ensure that waste is disposed of as close as possible to the source of generation (INER Reference File 1, 21:3701).

The fifth Conference of the Parties to the Basel Convention met here December 6-10. (See related articles in this issue.)

The United States has signed the Basel Convention, but ratification of the agreement is still being held up in Congress.

U.S. Exports Rise

"Nearly one-third of the state members of the international community are still not party to the Basel Convention, including the biggest power in the world which produces and exports large amounts of hazardous waste," declared Tolba, who was UNEP chief at the time the convention was concluded.

Citing figures which showed that U.S. exports of hazardous waste increased by almost 50 percent between 1993 and 1995, Tolba said the Basel Convention's impact "will certainly be incomplete as long as the United States is not a party."

"I fail to find an explanation for this when the United States delegation over 18 months of negotiations regularly pressed for assurances that the convention provisions are not inconsistent with U.S. national laws and regulations," he said.

State Department Calls Comments 'Unfair.'

Replying to the criticisms leveled against the United States December 10, director of the U.S. State Department's Office of Environmental Policy Daniel Fantozzi described Tolba's comments as "unfair" and "wrong."

On Tolba's claim that the United States participated in Basel Convention negotiations insisting that the agreement be consistent with domestic law, Fantozzi said this was indeed the U.S. objective but that it had not been achieved.

Ratification of the convention thus requires the United States to adopt implementing legislation, a long and difficult process, Fantozzi noted. In addition, there are problems related to the convention's definition of hazardous waste that have an impact on treatment of recyclable waste.

"The whole idea that the U.S. is a pariah in this area is just wrong," he declared. "Anyone who uses the lack of ratification to imply that simply doesn't know or doesn't care to know what the real situation is."

"Ratification is still a priority of the U.S. government, but there are complex technical and legal issues," he added. "It is something we are working on."

Fantozzi also questioned Tolba's figures regarding increased exports of hazardous waste from the United States. "We're still trying to figure out where these statistics came from," he said. "Almost all of our trade in hazardous waste is with Canada and is covered by a bilateral agreement which is recognized by both sides as Basel-consistent, so there is no question of subterfuge of environmental regulations."

1994 Amendment

Turning to another topic, Tolba also noted that Basel Convention states agreed in 1994 to ban shipments of hazardous waste from Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries to non-OECD countries and adopted an amendment to this effect the following year.

Sixty-two ratifications are needed to bring the amendment into force, but so far only 17 countries have completed the process.

Tolba urged current UNEP chief Klaus To`pfer to use his influence to get the required ratifications, "particularly by the major players," so that the shipment ban could come into force over the next few years. So far the European Union and Norway are the only advanced economies that have both signed and ratified the ban.

Tolba also called on signatories to the Basel Convention to take a tougher line on stopping illegal shipments of hazardous waste, in part by shining the public spotlight on such activities, and to improve their national reporting of waste production and disposal.

Illegal waste traffic is "considered by the Basel Convention to be criminal," Tolba said. "Shouldn't there be some concrete cases that are investigated, brought to trial, and publicized? This may make unscrupulous traders in poison think twice."