INTERGOVERNMENTAL NEGOTIATING COMMITTEE FOR AN
  INTERNATIONAL LEGALLY BINDING INSTRUMENT FOR
  IMPLEMENTING INTERNATIONAL ACTION ON
  CERTAIN PERSISTENT ORGANIC POLLUTANTS

PREPARATION OF AN INTERNATIONAL LEGALLY BINDING INSTRUMENT FOR
IMPLEMENTING INTERNATIONAL ACTION ON CERTAIN
PERSISTENT ORGANIC POLLUTANTS

The Secretariat has the honour to transmit to the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee, in the annex to this note, the attached information provided by the secretariat for the Basel Convention. The information is circulated as submitted by the secretariat for the Basel Convention and has been edited for format only.

1. The Conference of the Parties of the Basel Convention at its Fourth Meeting in Kuching, Malaysia, in February 1998 adopted decision IV/17 concerning cooperation of the Basel Convention and the activities undertaken at the global level leading to the development, among other things, of a legally binding instrument on persistent organic pollutants. A copy of decision IV/17 is attached to this note.

2. The aim of the Basel Convention is the environmentally sound management of hazardous wastes. This means that Parties should minimize the generation of hazardous wastes, dispose of them (including final disposal, recovery, recycling) as close as possible to their source of generation in a manner designed to protect human health and the environment and to reduce transboundary movements of such wastes to a minimum consistent with their environmentally sound management.

3. The Convention provides for a strict control procedure based on the prior written notification and consent for any transboundary movement of hazardous wastes and other wastes. The exporter or generator cannot initiate such movement until consent is given by all States Parties (and non-Parties if relevant), including States of transit, for the movement to take place.

4. For the purpose of the Basel Convention wastes are substances or objects which are disposed of or are intended to be disposed of or are required to be disposed of by the provisions of national law. Disposal means any operation specified in Annex IV to the Convention.

5. For the purpose of the Basel Convention, wastes that are moved across frontiers and are characterized as hazardous will be subject to the Convention. The prime determinant for classifying a waste as hazardous is its intrinsic properties (i.e. it exhibits or possesses one or more hazardous characteristics of Annex III). Annex I to the Convention is presumed to be the categories of wastes that are characterized as hazardous under the Convention. However, this is a rebuttable presumption in the sense that an exporter or a generator can prove, by using the hazard characteristics of Annex III to the Convention, that the waste identified in Annex I is not hazardous.

6. Wastes that belong to any of the two categories contained in Annex II that are subject to transboundary movements and classified as "other wastes" will be controlled under the Convention.

7. Waste that are not characterized as hazardous using Annexes I and III for this purpose (see paragraph 5), but are defined as, or are considered to be, hazardous wastes by the domestic legislation of the Party of export, import or transit shall be "hazardous wastes".

8. The third meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Basel Convention held in Geneva in September 1995 took the decision to amend the Convention with respect to a prohibition by each Party member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the E.C., Liechtenstein (listed in a new Annex VII to the Convention), of all transboundary movements of hazardous wastes which are destined for final disposal to other States. It also decided to phase out by 31 December 1997 and prohibits as of that date all transboundary movements of hazardous wastes for recovery, recycling, reclamation, direct reuse or alternative uses from Parties listed in the new Annex VII to other States. The wastes subject to such prohibition should be characterized as hazardous under the Convention.

9. At its fourth meeting, the Conference of the Parties took note of the work carried out by the Technical Working Group in the development of two lists of wastes, namely, List A and List B:

(a) List A: Wastes contained in this list are characterized as hazardous under Article 1,
paragraph 1 (a), of the Convention, and their designation on this list does not preclude the
use of Annex III to demonstrate that a waste is not hazardous;

(b) List B: Wastes contained in this list will not be wastes covered by Article 1, paragraph 1 (a), of this Convention unless they contain Annex I material to an extent causing them to exhibit an Annex III characteristic;

(c) The Conference of the Parties decided to add the two lists of wastes referred to above as two new annexes to the Convention, namely, Annex VIII (List A) and Annex IX (List B). The Conference of the Parties also instructed the Technical Working Group to keep List A and List B of wastes under review.

 

10. The vast majority of the identified persistent organic pollutants, when defined as wastes and subject to a transboundary movement, will be characterized as hazardous wastes under the Basel Convention. The Convention clearly identifies several waste persistent organic pollutants in its Annex I (categories of wastes to be controlled), in particular waste substances and articles containing or contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), or polychlorinated terphenyls (PCTs) or polybrominated biphenyls (PBBs), as well as any congenor of polychlorinated dibenzo-furan and of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxin. In this regard, the Technical Working Group has prepared technical guidelines on wastes comprising or containing PCBs, PCTs and PBBs that have been adopted by the Conference of the Parties at its second meeting in 1994. These guidelines are widely used by Governments, industry and environmental non-governmental organizations.

11. The Parties to the Basel Convention have recognized the importance to assist countries, in particular developing countries, to build up their capacity to manage these wastes in an environmentally sound way. In this context, the Secretariat of the Basel Convention is working closely with UNEP Chemicals and FAO on this matter. The Secretariat of the Basel Convention is in the process of establishing and operating Regional Centres for Training and Technology Transfer for the Environmentally Sound Management of Hazardous Wastes and the Minimization of Their Generation in accordance with its mandate as referred to in Article 14 of the Basel Convention. The Secretariat would therefore be ready to cooperate with UNEP Chemicals in capacity building at these centres in relation to management of persistent organic pollutants which have been defined as wastes.

Appendix

DECISION IV/17 OF THE CONFERENCE OF THE PARTIES TO THE BASEL CONVENTION

1. Takes note of the activities of the Technical Working Group regarding efforts to ensure that the international legally binding instruments being prepared concerning the implementation of the prior informed consent procedure and on persistent organic pollutants do not overlap with the Basel Convention;

2. Emphasizes that the sets of technical guidelines on wastes comprising or containing PCBs, PCTs, and PBBs and on hazardous waste from the production and use of organic solvents prepared by the Technical Working Group and adopted by the second meeting of the Conference of the Parties are of relevance to the issue of a number of persistent organic pollutants;

3. Requests the Secretariat of the Basel Convention, under the guidance of the Technical Working Group, to continue its cooperation with the United Nations Environment Programme and other relevant intergovernmental organizations, in particular with the Food and ?Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the International Maritime Organization, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe and the World Health Organization, on matters pertaining to coordination among these bodies, with a view to developing legally binding instruments which would not overlap with the Basel Convention;

4. Invites Parties to initiate, as appropriate and if not yet done, consultations with their respective national authorities responsible for chemical management to ensure consistency in regard to the scope of the Basel Convention and the newly developed legally binding instruments on hazardous chemicals;

5. Requests the Technical Working Group to consider the further elaboration of technical guidelines for the environmentally sound management of persistent organic pollutants;

6. Further invites Parties, as appropriate, to consider the particular difficulties posed by persistent organic pollutant wastes when providing technical assistance.

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