COMPENSATION AND LIABILITY PROTOCOL ADOPTED BY PARTIES TO BASEL CONVENTION ON HAZARDOUS WASTES

Press Release
UNEP/55

COMPENSATION AND LIABILITY PROTOCOL ADOPTED BY PARTIES TO BASEL CONVENTION ON HAZARDOUS WASTES

Ministers Adopt Declaration on Treaty Priorities for Next Decade

BASEL, 13 December (UNEP) On the tenth anniversary of the Basel Convention on Hazardous Wastes, the treaty's Conference of the Parties, adopted a Protocol on Friday 10 December on Liability and Compensation for Damage Resulting from the Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal.

Officials from 125 Governments, including 26 government ministers, had met last week in Basel, Switzerland, to consider the Protocol, among other issues regarding hazardous wastes. During the Conference's high-level segment, government ministers also adopted a Declaration on the Environmentally Sound Management of Hazardous Wastes.

The objective of the Protocol is to provide for a comprehensive regime for liability as well as adequate and prompt compensation for damage resulting from the transboundary movement of hazardous wastes and other wastes, including incidents occurring because of illegal traffic in those wastes.

"For the first time, we have a mechanism for assigning responsibility for damage caused by accidental spills of hazardous waste during export or import", said Klaus Toepfer, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), which administers the Convention's Geneva-based Secretariat. "The adoption of the Protocol is a major breakthrough."

The Protocol addresses the question of who is financially responsible in the event of an incident. Each phase of a transboundary movement, from the generation of wastes to their export, international transit, import and final disposal, is considered. Delegates have also adopted a decision for an interim arrangement to cover emergency situations until the Protocol enters into force.

The Protocol talks began in 1993 in response to the concerns of developing countries about their lack of funds and technologies for coping with illegal dumping or accidental spills. In the Declaration, the ministers emphasized the universality of the Basel Convention by calling for broadening access to the means of managing hazardous wastes in an environmentally sound way to every sector of society. They emphasized the urgent need to minimize the generation of such wastes, as well as the need to strengthen the capacity worldwide to handle those wastes properly.

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"The adoption of the Declaration is an historic event that represents a major shift towards cleaner production, capacity-building in developing countries and a desire to move away from the throw-away philosophy that is all too common, especially in the developed world", said Mr. Toepfer.

The Declaration, which will guide the activities of the Convention, outlines the main areas of focus during the next decade: (1) the prevention, minimization, recycling, recovery and disposal of hazardous and other wastes subject to the Basel Convention; (2) active promotion and use of cleaner technologies and production; (3) further reduction of transboundary movements of hazardous and other wastes; (4) prevention and monitoring of illegal traffic; (5) improvement of institutional and technical capacity-building, as well as the development and transfer of environmentally sound technologies, especially for developing countries and countries with economies in transition; (6) further development of regional and subregional centres for training and technology transfer; (7) enhanced information exchange, education and public awareness in all sectors of society; (8) greater cooperation at all levels between countries, public authorities, international organizations, industry, non-governmental organizations and academia; and (9) the development of mechanisms for assuring implementation of the Convention (and amendments) and monitoring compliance.

The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal entered into force in 1992. One hundred and thirty-two countries and the European Union are Parties to the Convention, which is concerned with the annual worldwide production of hundreds of millions of metric tonnes of hazardous wastes.

The Convention regulates the movement of those wastes and obliges its members to ensure that such wastes are managed and disposed of in an environmentally sound manner. Governments are expected to minimize the quantities that are transported, to treat and dispose of wastes as close as possible to where they were generated, and to minimize the generation of hazardous waste at source.

For more information, please contact: Mr. Michael Williams, UNEP Information Officer, Geneva, tel: (+41-22) 917-8242/44, fax: (+41-22) 797-3464, e-mail: mwilliams@unep.ch; or Jim Sniffen, UNEP Information Officer, New York, tel: (1-212) 963-8210, fax: (1-212) 963-7341, e-mail: uneprona@un.org. Official documents and other information on the Basel Convention are available on the Internet at

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