36 Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Waste and Their Disposal

Dr.Shilpa Jain

LEARNING OUTCOMES:

• Study of the Basel Convention
• Understanding the provisions of the Basel
• Convention. Its Importance and impact.

Introduction

The advancement of technology and its increased usage has affected the environment and has also created an adverse effect on the natural resource base of civilizations controlling the entire cycle of raw materials exploration and extraction, transformation into products, energy consumption, waste generation and the use of products by consumers.

Awakening environmental awareness and corresponding tightening of environmental regulations in the industrialized world in the 1970s and 1980s led to increasing public resistance to the disposal of hazardous wastes – in accordance with what became known as the NIMBY (Not in My Back Yard) syndrome – and to an escalation of disposal costs. This in turn led some operators to seek cheap disposal options for hazardous wastes in Eastern Europe and the developing world, where environmental awareness was much less developed and regulations and enforcement mechanisms were lacking. It was against this background that the Basel Convention was negotiated in the late 1980s, and its thrust at the time of its adoption was to combat the “toxic trade”, as it was termed. India ratified it on 24th June 1992 and it came into force in India on 22nd September1992.

It has 170 member countries (Parties) and it aims to protect human health and the environment against the adverse effects resulting from the generation, management, transboundary movements and disposal of hazardous and other wastes.

The Conference of the Parties (known as the COP), of which all the States that are party to the Convention are members, is the primary organ of the Convention. The Conference of the Parties develops the policies that guides for the implementation of the Convention, also the COP can adopt amendments to the Convention, as well as new instruments, such as Protocols, if it considers that these would assist in the achievement of the goals of the Convention. The COP meets at least once every two years, and seeks to reach its decisions by consensus.

Aims and Objectives:

The aims and objectives of the Basel Convention are as follows:

1.  To protect human health and environment against adverse effects of Hazardous wastes.
2.  Reduction of hazardous waste generation and the promotion of environmentally sound management of hazardous wastes, at the places of disposal of wastes..
3. Helping developing countries with the environmentally sound management of the hazardous and other waste they generate.
4.  The restriction on the transboundary movement of hazardous wastes except where it is perceived to be in accordance with the principles of environmentally sound management; and
5.  A regulatory system applying to cases where transboundary movements are permissible.

What is Environmentally Sound Management

The Environmentally Sound Management is a broad policy concept without a clear universal definition at the current time. However, provisions pertaining to ESM as it applies to hazardous wastes within the Basel and Stockholm conventions, and also the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), provide international direction that is also supportive of ESM efforts under way in various countries and among industrial sectors.

Provision on ESM under the Basel Convention

(i) In paragraph 8 of Article 2, the Basel Convention defines Environmentally Sound Management of hazardous wastes or other wastes as “taking all practicable steps to ensure that hazardous wastes or other wastes are managed in a manner which will protect human health and the environment against adverse effects which may result from such wastes”.

(ii)   In paragraph 2 (b) of Article 4, the Convention requires each party to take the appropriate measures to “ensure the availability of adequate disposal facilities for the environmentally sound management of hazardous or other wastes, that shall be located, to the extent possible, within it, whatever the place of their disposal”, while in paragraph 2 (c) it requires each party to, “ensure that persons involved in the management of hazardous wastes or other wastes within it take such steps as are necessary to prevent pollution due to hazardous wastes and other wastes arising from such management and, if such pollution occurs, to minimize the consequences thereof for human health and the environment”.

(iii)   In paragraph 8 of Article 4, the Convention requires that “hazardous wastes or other wastes, to be exported, are managed in an environmentally sound manner in the State of import or elsewhere. Technical guidelines for the environmentally sound management of wastes subject to this Convention shall be decided by the Parties at their first meeting”. The present guidelines are intended to give a more precise definition of ESM in the context of co-processing hazardous wastes in cement kilns, including appropriate treatment and disposal methods for these waste streams. Several key principles were articulated in the 1994 framework document on the preparation of technical guidelines for the environmentally sound management of wastes subject to the Basel Convention.

It recommends a number of legal, institutional and technical conditions (ESM criteria) such as:

• A regulatory and enforcement infrastructure to ensure compliance with applicable regulations;
• Sites or facilities are authorized and are of an adequate standard of technology and pollution control to deal with hazardous wastes in the way proposed, in particular ,taking into account the level of technology and pollution control in the exporting country;
• Operators of sites or facilities at which hazardous wastes are managed are required, as appropriate, to monitor the effects of those activities;
• Appropriate action is taken in cases where monitoring gives indications that the management of hazardous wastes has resulted in unacceptable releases;
• People involved in the management of hazardous wastes are capable and adequately trained in their capacity.

The 1999 Basel Declaration on Environmentally Sound Management, adopted by the Conference of the Parties to the Basel Convention at its fifth meeting, calls upon the parties to enhance and strengthen their efforts and cooperation to achieve ESM through prevention, minimization, recycling, recovery and disposal of hazardous and other wastes subject to the Convention, taking into account social, technological and economic concerns; and through further reduction of transboundary movements of hazardous and other wastes subject to the Convention.

The “Blue Lady” Issue

One of the major instances of Basel convention could be found in the Issue of “Blue Lady”. For over a year, a ship “Blue Lady” containing toxic wastes has idled in a Gujrat port while legal wrangling continued over responsibility for its break up and final disposal . In September 2007, the Indian Supreme court heard overwhelming evidence, and laid down following guidelines:

i.   The SC empowered the government to send back any contaminated ship that comes to India for breaking at Alang or any other ship-breaking yard in the country. The court has ordered that the government formulate a comprehensive code and immediately incorporate these recommendations until the laws are modified and aligned with the court orders.

ii. The continuation and expansion of Alang and other ship-breaking yards across the country shall be permitted, subject to the compliance to these directions by the ship- breakers. The order leaves little space for the authorities to allow ship-breaking even if ship owners do not provide details of contaminants on board.

iii. The court has reiterated that India should participate in relevant international conventions with the clear mandate for decontamination of ships for hazardous substances such as asbestos, waste oil, and PCBS prior to export to India for breaking.

iv. Until further orders, the court has asked the state pollution control boards, customs department, the National Institute of Occupational Health and Atomic Energy Regulatory Board to oversee the entire arrangement at the shipyards.

It may not always be possible to eliminate waste entirely, some processes will inevitably result in hazardous by-products, but reducing waste drastically is good economic and environmental sense which every state should possess .

Examples of wastes regulated by the Basel Convention

• Biomedical and healthcare wastes
• Used oils
• Used lead acid batteries
• Persistent Organic Pollutant wastes (POPs wastes), chemicals and pesticides that persist for many years in the environment. They are transported great distances from their point of release, bioaccumulation (thus threatening humans and animals at the top of the food chain), and cause a range of health effects
• Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs), compounds used in industry as heat exchange fluids, in electric transformers and capacitors, and as additives in paint, carbonless copy paper, sealants and plastics. 
• Thousands of chemical wastes generated by industries and other consumers.

How the Basel Convention works-

First, the Basel Convention regulates the transboundary movements of hazardous and other wastes applying the “Prior Informed Consent” procedure (shipments made without consent are illegal). Shipments to and from non-Parties are illegal unless there is a special agreement. Each Party is required to introduce appropriate national or domestic legislation to prevent and punish illegal traffic in hazardous and other wastes as it is a criminal offence.

Second, the Convention obliges its Parties to ensure that hazardous and other wastes are managed and disposed of in an environmentally sound manner (ESM). To this end, Parties are expected to minimize the quantities that are moved across borders, to treat and dispose of wastes as close as possible to their place of generation and to prevent or minimize the generation of wastes at source. Strong controls have to be applied from the moment of generation of a hazardous waste to its storage, transport, treatment, reuse, recycling, recovery and final disposal.

Additional measures to further enhance the effectiveness of Basel Convention are:

(i)  The Convention cooperates with Interpol over illegal traffic. This trade is increasing, as it can yield big profits – at the cost of irreparably damaging the environment – and it tends to flow from developed to developing countries. But nobody knows exactly how big the problem is; though many cases of illegal traffic have been discovered, they are only a small proportion of those incidents that actually occur. There must be cooperation between countries to build up the capacity to tackle illegal traffic. United Nations regional commissions, and other regional bodies or conventions and protocols, should take an effective part in monitoring and preventing this. It is also important that customs officers and port authorities are adequately trained and able to take full control of the hazardous wastes being moved across frontiers.

(ii)  Parties are to cooperate in helping developing countries minimize the generation of hazardous wastes and their movement across frontiers. Measures can include ensuring that adequate disposal facilities are available, that managers are able to prevent pollution, and that, if pollution occurs, the consequences for human health and the environment can be kept to a minimum.

Thus, the Basel Convention lacks effective measures for enforcement, for ensuring compliance, for sanctioning or for assigning liabilities. However, the Convention works actively with governments and private entities in the form of partnerships to minimize trade in waste. Non-state actors have played active role in moving negotiations forward. The Convention has also invested heavily in generating awareness on the problem.