9:53 AM Sep 25, 1995

TOXIC WASTE TRADE BAN FIRMS UP

Geneva 23 Sep (Chakravarthi Raghavan) -- Over a hundred countries at the meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP) of the Basel Convention on Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes agreed by consensus Friday to amend the Convention to ban as of 31 December 1997 all transboundary movements from the OECD to non-OECD countries of hazardous wastes destined for final disposal or for recycling or recovery operations.

The decision was adopted by consensus at the final plenary of the Third Session of the COPs of the Basel Convention, and was cheered by the environmental NGOs present, while the recycling industry and business groups, including the International Chamber of Commerce regretted it.

Currently, under a decision adopted at the last COPs meeting in Geneva in 1994, there is a ban (not under the Convention, but as a political decision of the COP) on exports of hazardous wastes from OECD to non-OECD countries for final disposal, and agreement to develop a complete ban including for recycling purposes.

Of the 400 million tonnes of waste produced each year, according to UNEP some 98% come from the OECD countries. Due to the high costs of disposing off this waste, a new global industry and trade has sprung up -- for collecting and exporting such wastes to developing countries and the former communist countries in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

But the effectiveness of the ban would depend on developing an agreed definition, and its approval by the COPs, of "hazardous" characteristics of "wastes" -- an admittedly difficult technical problem, even for those promoting the objectives of the Convention -- that would bring such exports under the scope of the amendment.

A technical working group is now studying the issue and has been asked to complete its work on hazard characterization and development of lists and technical guidelines and submit them for approval to the fourth meeting of the COPs.

To become effective, the Amendment to the Convention has to be approved by ratification and other equivalent national processes by three-fourths of the COPs, and even then would be binding only on those accepting it.

The United States, which has been lobbying OECD and non-OECD governments against the ban, on the ground that it may be against the WTO (by banning only OECD exports to non-OECD countries and not deal with mutual trade among non-OECD countries) is yet to ratify the Basel Convention. But Australia and others are Parties to the Convention.

Thus while the US may be free to export, the Convention prohibits the Parties to the Convention from exporting to or importing from a non-Party hazardous or other wastes.

With or without the new amendment, any Basel Convention member could ban any imports of wastes, which a country considers to be 'hazardous', and it could probably survive any challenge in the World Trade Organization, even if the country disposes off its own 'hazardous wastes' or recovers material from such wastes for its own use.

Over 100 countries have now bans on imports of all hazardous wastes, including those for recycling and recovery, and many of them support the ban on such waste exports from the OECD to non-OECD countries.

But the problem facing such an import ban, is the ingenuity of the traders (importers and exporters) who very cleverly package and designate the imports as something else and dump them -- and by the time the country catches up, the importing enterprise and the exporting enterprise abroad may have 'disappeared'. Hence the need for legally binding, and enforceable, obligation on the country from where the exports originate -- including a policing of their exports in the same way they ask countries from where narcotics are exported.

The decision to amend the Basel Convention, thus making legal an existing ban/guideline that was adopted last year at the Second meeting of the COPs, came in the very last hour of the final plenary of the Third Session of the Conference of Parties of the Basel Convention, at the end of a week of intense negotiations and lobbying for a ban by "green groups" and opposition to it from the "recycling industry".

The consensus decision, though, was almost blown away by Mr. Bakary Kante of Senegal, Chair of the COP meeting (who was seen, from the floor, being advised by the secretariat) who introduced the draft (a non-paper that had been in circulation among groups), announced he would have it read out by the secretariat for those who did not have a copy, but immediately (without this being done) gavelled it as adopted.

Initially, Kante ignored protests and points of order by some (including one or two countries who favoured the decision), saying that their remarks would be noted in the records. But when Japan took the floor and used some strong language and asked how the secretariat expected (voluntary) funds to be provided for its work (as was being sought) when the processes were so "behaviour, the Chair apologised, briefly recessed the meeting, and on resumption gave the floor to a few to make their reservations or opposition.

Among those who expressed opposition or reservations were South Korea and Russia.

But when Kante put the decision to the COPs, telling them that the interpreters would be leaving in a few minutes, no one objected and the decision was carried.

Within minutes of the end of the session, Greenpeace, the international environment NGO that has been running a major lobbying effort among delegations and, an intense press and public campaign before and during the meeting, issued a press release that the "floodgates of toxic waste exports to developing countries" had been closed by the decision.

Greenpeace Policy Advisor and representative at the COP, Dr. Kevin Stairs said that despite "an onslaught of tricks and bad faith negotiations by a handful of countries, the global community has refused to accept a future of toxic colonialism and has agreed on a real ban... At last the loophole of being able to export hazardous waste under the guise of recycling will be eliminated, thus beginning a new era to promote waste prevention and clear production.. This will finally force the rich countries to take full responsibility for their hazardous waste production problems instead of dumping it on their neighbours. This was the original intent of this convention, and now it is fully a part of it."

The success of Greenpeace at the COP meeting has helped it to recover from the setbacks to its position in the wake of its 'successful' campaign against the Shell oil company over its plan to sink in deep sea the oil platform 'Brent Spar', forcing that company to abandon the plan and move the platform to one of the fjords in Norway, for temporary stationing, pending disposal of the waste through other methods.

While lobbying campaign proved successful, its reliability on ecological matters suffered some setback. A number of ecologists have been saying that, at the present state of knowledge and technology, sinking Brent Spar in the deep sea would have been better than any land-based operation. For one thing, the wet radio-active sludge and waste on that Brent Spar if sunk in the deep seas would have been less dangerous than if it dries up up on land and the radio-active dust is blown about by exposure to atmosphere.

Greenpeace has also had to recently apologis to Shell for its initial estimations of the extent of radio-active and hazardous wastes on that ship which subsequently have been shown to be rather exaggerated.

Only time would show whether the Basel Convention amendment decision would create a momentum in the North for introducing technological processes without toxic or other wastes, as claimed by Greenpeace, or lead to other complications for the South -- including a toxic colonialism being replaced by something else.

The Greenpeace press release Friday (21 March), curiously dated 18 September -- whether merely an error or a pre-prepared contingency press release -- also said the amendment had been adopted by consensus despite "an intensive last-ditch effort to scuttle the ban" by trade associations and governments of Australia, the United States, New Zealand, Canada, India and Korea.

While India had been on the small drafting group of the Conference which worked on the draft decision, and presented its views at the Group of 77 meeting on Friday (when no consensus in favour or against draft decision or changes in it, was reached), it did not express any views or reservations at the final plenary itself.

The Indian government's position has not been clearly spelt out in India or here -- a change of ministers in New Delhi, with Kamal Nath who headed the environment ministry taking over as Textiles Minister and being replaced by Mr. Pilot (formerly holding charge of the interior ministry) has added to some confusion.

Some environmental NGOs have moved the Supreme Court in India against the government over its having allowed imports of some zinc scrap metals for recycling and recovery of prime zinc -- on the ground of the scrap's dangerous and hazardous content. The NGOs, on Friday, had also met the new minister who assured them that hazardous imports would not be allowed.

Indian officials at the Conference however denied they had opposed the ban, noting that they had in fact made a statement at the plenary explaining their view that they favoured the ban, but wanted language to ensure that imports by them of some "wastes" without hazardous characteristics would not be prevented.

The officials said that the government's position reflected India's legitimate concerns about a blanket ban that would prevent imports of scrap metals for some industries -- which in some cases would be superior in terms of averting or mitigating environmental damage than mining -- forcing them to buy at higher costs primary metals from the OECD countries.

The United States has not yet ratified the Basel Convention and has been at the forefront of moves to enable "export for recycling" -- a subterfuge to export wastes, including household and municipal wastes and garbage, whose final disposal in landfills inside the country is opposed by local communities.

Australia too has been lobbying for several months now various countries against the ban including on the ground of its likely violation of the trading rules of the WTO.

Besides the amendments to the Convention, the COPs by the consensus decision:

* instructed the technical working group of the COP to continue its work on hazard characterization of wastes subject to the Basel Convention,

* noted that this technical group has already commenced work on the development of lists of wastes which are hazardous and wastes not subject to the Convention, and that those lists already offer useful guidelines but are not yet complete or fully accepted, and that

* the technical work group will technical guidelines to assist any Party or State which has the sovereign right to conclude agreements or arrangements including those under Article 11 (which enables bilateral, multilateral or regional agreements or arrangements, that do not derogate from environmentally sound management of hazardous and other wastes) concerning transboundary movement of hazardous wastes. The Technical Working Group was instructed to give full priority to completing the work on hazard characterization and the development of lists and technical guidelines in order to submit them for approval to the fourth meeting of the COPs.