Basel Convention

BASEL CONVENTION

By Anton Antonio

December 28, 2015

In the dumping of Canadian trash in the Philippines case, an international agreement has been mentioned repeatedly.  Philippine-based environmentalist and activist groups have strongly echoed the fact that Canada has violated the Basel Convention.

“The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, usually known as the Basel Convention, is an international treaty that was designed to reduce the movements of hazardous wastes between nations, and specifically to prevent transfer of hazardous waste from developed to less developed countries (LDCs).  It does not, however, address the movement of radioactive waste.  The Convention is also intended to minimize the amount and toxicity of wastes generated, to ensure their environmentally sound management as closely as possible to the source of generation, and to assist LDCs in environmentally sound management of the hazardous and other wastes they generate.  The Convention was opened for signature on 22 March 1989, and entered into force on 5 May 1992.  As of January 2015, 182 states and the European Union are parties to the Convention.  Haiti and the United States have signed the Convention but not ratified it.”  (Wikipedia)

There are several international agreements --- that are aimed at mitigating the effects of global warming and climate change… and, in this case, the transboundary movement of toxic and hazardous waste --- have already been passed and agreed upon by a majority of participating countries.  The next set of blogs/articles will be devoted to these international accords to increase the level of awareness on their history, aims and objectives.  One such international accord is the Basel Convention.

Thoughts to promote positive action…

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REFERENCE:

Wikipedia, (2015).  “Basel Convention”.  Retrieved on December 28, 2015 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basel_Convention