Basel Convention on Waste Trade. Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants

Although the original European Economic Commission charter of 1950 did not include environmental regulation, regional agreements about pollution emerged as early as 1963 with the Berne Accord, which was designed to protect the Rhine River from pollution. Treaty members were France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. The accord focused mostly on sewage and industrial waste cleanup.

Additional concern in the area of toxic waste was sparked by a large fire at the Sandoz chemical plant in Basel in 1986. Firefighters using water to combat the fire inadvertently swept thousands of gallons of highly toxic chemicals into the Rhine River, killing millions of fish and making river water temporarily unsafe for drinking.

The origins of the Basel convention treaty are found in a 1982 United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) working group to study the hazardous waste trade. By 1987 this led to the Cairo Guidelines, a group of proposals to encourage countries to adopt stronger internal regulations. Building on the Cairo Guidelines, a Rotterdam convention developed an informed consent procedure for trade in hazardous chemicals in 1998.

However, increased trade in toxic wastes led to a need for a legally binding treaty, and in 1989,116 countries met in Basel to finalize a treaty proposal, which became official in 1992.

The Basel treaty initially limited and (with amendments in 1996) attempted to abolish most kinds of hazardous waste trade between industrial and developing countries. It also put into place a uniform classification system for hazardous wastes and, by 1999, established a system of international liability compensation for damages resulting from hazardous waste transportation. In 2002,146 nations and the European Union were formally parties to the Basel treaty, although the United States has rejected the treaty, and a complete ban has not been fully ratified.

Despite the progress that the Basel treaty represents, it is severely criticized by some environmental groups and developing nations because it has no "superfund"—that is, it does not finance international protective and remediation efforts, as it was originally meant to do under Article 14 of the convention. Critics also note that the Basel treaty also exempts all waste trade by nonsignatories (such as the United States) and has no international policing mechanism.

Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are a class of toxic waste made up of dangerous pesticides such as DDT and other chemicals and process by-products such as PCBs and dioxins. Studies of Arctic ecologies have shown an increasing bioaccumulation of POPs in wild life and have raised fears of massive ecological collapse unless control strategies are developed.

In addition, use of banned pesticides in developing nations that export food to industrial nations has been called the "circle of poison" by environmental experts.

The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants was formally initiated in Sweden in May 2001. Its goal is to ban or restrict POPs, pesticides, and industrial chemicals and avert the development of new dangerous chemicals.

The convention is also proposing a financial mechanism called the "Global Environment Facility" (GEF), through which donor countries can help developing countries clean up waste dumps and shift to safer alternative chemicals.

According to the World Wildlife Fund, POPs pose a particular hazard because of four characteristics: (1) They are toxic, and even small amounts have major impacts on nerve and reproductive systems; (2) they are long-lasting (persistent), and so they resist normal processes that break down contaminants; (3) they build up in the body fat of people and animals and are passed from mother to fetus; and (4) they can travel great distances on wind and water currents.

Moreover, they are not necessary. Chemicals designated as POPs have been replaced in industry and agriculture worldwide but continue to be used simply to give minor economic advantages to some industries. Environmental scientists point out that with an international effort, these major threats to wildlife and people in developing nations could be removed at reasonable costs.