Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants
The Stockholm Convention on persistent organic pollutants, including POPs Convention is a binding international agreement on the prohibition and restriction measures for certain persistent organic pollutants (English persistent organic pollutants, POPs). The Convention entered on 17 May 2004 on deposit of the fiftieth instrument of ratification of a signatory State which. Of France, in force
History
The Stockholm Convention, which was signed on 22 May 2001 by delegations from 122 countries and currently ratified by 178 countries (as of: January 18, 2013), the production and use of nine pesticides (aldrin, chlordane, DDT, dieldrin, endrin, heptachlor, hexachlorobenzene, mirex, toxaphene ), a group of industrial chemicals (polychlorinated biphenyls), and two groups of undesirable by-products (polychlorinated dibenzodioxins and dibenzofurans ) restricted or prohibited. These substances or groups of substances are also known as the Dirty Dozen.
The road up to the signing was long. A total of five rounds of negotiations of the Intergovernmental Negotiation Committee ( INC) were needed to find a workable compromise for all signatory states. First, it was argued, inter alia, the classification of the twelve POPs into one of three categories approved ban on the INC -2:
- Ban on the production and application
- Restriction of production and use
- Emission reduction necessary
In particular, the positions of the industrial and the developing countries and the former Eastern Bloc countries were initially far apart. While already the production and use banned in industrialized countries for the twelve POPs international or European conventions or greatly restricted, many of these substances are still used in developing countries and the former Eastern Bloc countries due to lack of cheaper alternatives. Developed countries among themselves disagreed. So, for example, was still engage in the Convention on the INC - 5, a major point of contention between the EU and especially the USA, Japan and Australia as required by the EU precautionary principle as a criterion for the future inclusion of other POPs. Finally, the negotiating parties have agreed that in the addition of new substances in the Convention, the absence of a definitive scientific evidence of environmental hazard, States Parties should not discourage further action.
Implementation
In the EU, the Convention was in Regulation ( EC) No 850/ 2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council implemented by 29 April 2004 on persistent organic pollutants and amending Directive 79/117/EEC, in Switzerland it was by means of adoption 0.814.03 adopted into national law.
The Secretariat of the United Nations Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) located in Geneva.