Parliament and Council Directive amending Directive 67/548/EEC on the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions relating to the classification, packaging, and labelling of dangerous substances, O.J. 1996, L236/35).
Veerle Heyvaert
As of December 1996, the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal, adopted on 22 March 1989 and entered into force on 5 May 1992, had been ratified by 108 States and the European Community (EC).
Since the first meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) in December 1992, there has been a definitive trend toward prohibiting the export of hazardous wastes from developed to developing countries. Decision III/1, taken by the third meeting of the COP in September 1995, formalized this trend by amending the Convention and introducing a new article obligating parties listed in a new Annex VII (the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the European Community (EC), and Liechtenstein) to prohibit all transboundary movements of hazardous wastes which are destined for operations according to Annex IV A to states not listed in Annex VII. (Annex IV A deals with operations that do not lead to the possibility of resource recovery, recycling, reclamation, direct re-use, or alternative uses.) Moreover, each party listed in Annex VII must phase out by 31 December 1997, and prohibit as of that date, all transboundary movements of hazardous wastes under Art. 1(I)(a) of the Convention that are destined for operations according to Annex IV B to states not listed in Annex VII. Such transboundary movement shall not be prohibited unless the wastes in question are characterized as hazardous under the Convention. The amendment needs to be ratified by two-thirds of the parties to enter into force. By year's end, the amendment had only been ratified by Finland.
Decision III/1 instructs the Technical Working Group (TWG) to expedite work on hazard characterization and the development of lists and technical guidelines for submission to and approval at the fourth meeting of the COP.
In 1996, the TWG made good progress in the development of lists of wastes, which are tools to bring clarity and certainty to the classification and
-188-
Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.com
Publication information:
Book title: Yearbook of International Environmental Law.
Volume: 7.
Contributors: Günther Handl - Editor, Jutta Brunnée - AssociateEditor, Philippe Sands - AssociateEditor.
Publisher: Clarendon Press.
Place of publication: Oxford.
Publication year: 1998.
Page number: 188.
This material is protected by copyright and, with the exception of fair use, may not be further copied, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means.
One moment ...
- Georgia
- Arial
- Times New Roman
- Verdana
- Courier/monospaced
Reset