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Report by Basel Secretariat
For use of the media only; not an official document

This decision is a follow-up to the September 1995 adoption of an Amendment to the Basel Convention immediately prohibiting the export of hazardous wastes from (principally) OECD Member States to any other State for final disposal.

It also called for phasing out the export of hazardous wastes destined for recycling or recovery by 31 December 1997, with a full ban thereafter. The Amendment has so far been ratified by Denmark, the EC, Finland, Luxembourg, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the UK; it needs additional ratifications before it enters into force.

A critical issue on this week=s agenda concerns proposals by Chile and the EC to amend the Convention further by incorporating into it two lists of wastes that have been prepared by the Convention's Technical Working Group. When the ban was adopted in 1995, the Group was asked as a matter of urgency to clarify which specific hazardous wastes should be included under the ban for export. It has responded by producing a list of wastes characterized as hazardous under the Convention plus a list of wastes that would normally not be covered by the treaty.

The hazardous waste list would ban the export of wastes containing arsenic, lead, mercury, asbestos, and dozens of other chemicals and substances. The non-hazardous waste list would exempt from the ban those wastes that can be safely (and profitably) recycled or re-used, including scrap iron, steel or copper, certain electronic assemblies, non-hazardous chemical catalysts, and many ceramics, solid plastics, and paper and textile wastes.

"The Parties to the Basel Convention are committed to making the agreed ban on hazardous wastes truly operational," said Dr. Iwona Rummel-Bulska, the Convention's Executive Secretary. "Further specifying which wastes are hazardous and which wastes are not covered by the Convention will greatly improve the Convention's ability to respond to the concerns and expectations of all stakeholders about environmental health and valid economic interests."

Another issue on the agenda addresses the increasing demand by many governments for assistance in building up their capacity for meeting their Convention commitments. Helping countries to develop the capacity for minimizing the generation of hazardous wastes and for safely managing waste disposal is central to the continuing success of the Basel Convention.

To improve such capacity-building, Parties are supporting the establishment of regional and sub-regional training centres around the world. The regional centre for Central and Eastern European States established in Bratislava, Slovakia is already operational, as is the centre for Asia and Pacific States that has been set up in China.

Another issue to be discussed is a future protocol on liability and compensation for damage resulting from hazardous waste trade. Many developing countries are concerned that they may lack the financial and technological capacity to clean up an unwanted hazardous waste dump or spill on their territory. Key outstanding issues include from whom a claimant may request compensation and whether to establish an international emergency fund.

The increased squeeze on the hazardous waste trade, combined with the continued worldwide generation of over 400 million tonnes of hazardous wastes annually (of which some 10% enters into international trade), increases the need for a rigorous system to discourage illegal trade. Ways of improving the monitoring, prevention and detection of illegal actions will feature prominently on the meeting's agenda. The Convention already actively cooperates with Interpol and the enforcement section of the World Customs Organization on this matter.

The current meeting is known officially as the fourth meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP-4). It was originally scheduled for 6-10 October 1997 but had to be postponed due to the environmental emergency created by the out-of-control forest fires that spread thick smoke through Southeast Asia.

The Basel Convention was adopted in March 1989 after a series of notorious "toxic cargoes" from industrialized countries galvanized world outrage over the dumping of hazardous wastes in developing and East European countries. It entered into force in May 1992 and now has 117 Parties. COP-3 was held in Geneva in September 1995, and COP-5, marking the Convention's tenth anniversary, is likely to be held in Basel, Switzerland.