After years of deadlock over treaty interpretation, the 178 countries that are Parties to the Basel Convention agreed to speed up the entry into force of the Basel Ban Amendment, which prohibits all exports of hazardous wastes from developed to developing countries. The Basel Convention is the global treaty regulating the transboundary movement of hazardous waste.
In 1994 the countries who were party to the convention at the time adopted a decision agreeing to prohibit immediately all transboundary movements of hazardous wastes which are destined for final disposal operations from OECD to non-OECD States. At the next meeting of the Parties in 1995, they adopted a further decision IIII/1 as an amendment to the Convention. Since then, there has been disagreement over ratification of the amendment. A diplomatic working group known as the Country Led Initiative was formed to address the disagreement surrounding the Ban Amendment.
It has now been decided that the Ban Amendment will go into force when 68 of the 90 countries that were Parties to the Convention in 1995 ratify the agreement. It is expected that this can be achieved in 2-3 years.
A major sustainable development conference in Brazil next year offers a key opportunity to accelerate and to scale-up a global transition to a low-carbon, resource-efficient Green Economy, a meeting of the world’s environment ministers has signaled.
A new brief by NRDC reviews tools for effective environmental governance in India, with the goal of supporting Indian civil society and the Indian environment ministry in their work to improve India’s existing structures to enforce environmental laws, particularly in the context of pollution.
