Chemicals & Wastes

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Geneva has clearly established itself as the global center for multilateral regulation, sound management and governance in the domain of transboundary movements of hazardous and other chemicals and wastes. This is due to the presence of a number of multilateral organizations involved in this field through their expertise and mandate, such as especially ILO, UNCTAD, UNEP, UNITAR, WHO, WTO, as well as the University of Geneva, IHEID, and a number of specialized NGOs. Last but not least, one should keep in mind some less known but very important interorganizational bodies such as especially the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management SAICM and the Interorganizational Programme for the Sound Management of Chemicals IOMC.

The purpose of this subsection is to draw attention to the numerous and particularly complex streams of negotiations in this field. After the 1989 Basel Convention, the Rotterdam and the Stockholm Convention are still quite recent, they were adopted in 1998 and 2001 respectively, and both entered into force in 2004. In spite of the fact that these two conventions are relatively new, we can say that the Chemicals and Wastes negotiations have now reached a degree of maturity which maybe they have lacked until recently compared to other multilateral environmental negotiations. This is the case especially after the conclusion in May 2009 of the International Conference on Chemicals Management (ICCM-2) which set important marking stones for the further development of the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM), even though important questions will not be decided upon before ICCM-3 in three years. The SAICM, created in 2006, has become an innovative, dynamic and flexible multistakeholder mechanism at the center of the the Chemicals and Wastes Conventions. It is administered by UNEP Chemicals under the responsibility of SAICM's own governing body ICCM.

Reports and Analyses of

Chemicals and Wastes Negotiations

The Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB) follows and reports on the key multilateral environmental negotiations. Its section on Chemicals Meetings provides introductions, overviews and analyses of the key multilateral negotiations concerning the regulation of chemicals and wastes. The daily reports of these negotiations are authored by a team of specialists of the ENB which is a balanced, timely and independent reporting service that provides daily information in print and electronic formats. It is published by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), a non-profit organization based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada with offices in New Geneva, New York and Ottawa. The office of the Earth Negotiations Bulletin is based in New York City, two blocks from the United Nations.

For background information and some historical notes on ENB please refer to

ENB Background and History,

the general overview of these services is provided under Linkages

Further resources on all the negotiations covered:

News

Activities

Funding

ENB Team

Electronic Distribution

ENB Archives

Other Links

The following series of three very informative booklets on chemicals and wastes is particularly recommended. Author: Jack Weinberg, co-published 2008/09 by IPEN/SAICM

An NGO Guide to SAICM
http://www.ipen.org/campaign/documents/education/saicm%20introduction%20english.pdf

An NGO Guide to Persistent Organic Pollutants
http://www.ipen.org/campaign/documents/education/ngo_guide_pops_final.pdf

An NGO Guide to Hazardous Pesticides and SAICM
http://www.ipen.org/campaign/documents/education/hazpesticides_guide.pdf