Some 70,000 different chemicals are available on the market today, and around 1,500 new ones are introduced every year, presenting a major challenge to many developing governments that must attempt to monitor and manage these potentially dangerous substances. As of Monday, they have a new tool.
The Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent (PIC) Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade became international law Monday, and is now legally binding on its members.
The Convention establishes the principle that export of a chemical covered by the Convention can only take place with the prior informed consent of the importing party.
Jointly supported by the United Nations agencies responsible for the environment as well as food and agriculture, the Rotterdam Convention enables countries to decide which potentially hazardous chemicals they want to import and to exclude those they cannot manage safely.
Where trade is permitted, requirements for labeling and providing information on potential health and environmental effects will promote the safer use of chemicals. "This treaty will enable developing countries to avoid many of the mistakes made in the richer countries, where the misuse of chemicals and pesticides has too often harmed or killed people and damaged the environment," said Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
"In this way all countries will be able to reap the benefits that chemicals and pesticides can offer while ensuring that their development is environmentally sustainable," he said.
Many pesticides that have been banned or whose use has been severely restricted in industrialized countries are still marketed and used in developing countries.
"In many developing countries conditions do not allow small farmers to use highly toxic pesticides safely. The result is continued damage to the health of farmers and poisoning of the environment," said Jacques Diouf, director-general of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
"We recognize that, in meeting the increased demand for food production, pesticides will continue to be used. The Rotterdam Convention provides countries with a major tool to reduce the risks associated with pesticide use," Diouf said.
Once a chemical is included in the PIC procedure, a "decision guidance document" containing information about the chemical and the regulatory decisions to ban or severely restrict it for health or environmental reasons, is circulated to importing countries.
These countries are given nine months to prepare a response concerning their future import of the chemical.
The response can consist of either a final decision (to allow import of the chemical, not to allow import, or to allow import subject to specified conditions) or an interim response.
Decisions by an importing country must apply equally to domestic production as well as to imports.
"Pesticides remain a major cause of ill health and fatalities around the world," says Barbara Dinham of Pesticide Action Network UK, who has been actively involved in development of the PIC process from the outset.
She said her organization "particularly welcomes the way the Convention will help identify pesticides causing problems in the field under the conditions of use in poor rural areas." The Convention has been implemented on a voluntary basis since September 1998 in the form of the interim PIC procedure. This interim period has provided an opportunity to gain experience and to develop operational procedures and processes that should allow for a fast start to implementing the legally binding Convention.
The Convention starts with 27 chemicals on the list for prior notification and consent. They include a range of highly toxic pesticides that are traded internationally such as parathion and monocrotophos, as well as five additional forms of asbestos – including chrysotile asbestos, which accounts for more than 90 percent of asbestos presently used and traded).
As many as 15 more pesticides and industrial chemicals that have been identified during the interim PIC procedure are set for inclusion at the first meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention which will take place in Geneva from September 20 through 24, 2004.
As of February 19, 2004, there were 60 State Parties to the treaty, including Canada. The United States has signed the Convention but has not ratified it.
"The Convention will help countries to avoid using pesticides that are recognized to be harmful to human health and the environment and highly toxic pesticides that cannot be handled safely by small farmers in developing countries," Diouf said.
The treaty promotes sustainable agriculture in a safer environment, thereby contributing to an increase in agricultural production and supporting the battle against hunger, disease and poverty," he said.
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