Basel Convention

• Overview: The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal was adopted on 22 March 1989 in Basel, Switzerland. 
  • India is a party to this treaty.
• Objective: To protect human health and the environment from the adverse effects of hazardous and other wastes requiring special consideration.
• Scope: The Convention covers a broad range of hazardous wastes, identified by their origin, composition, or characteristics. It also includes four categories of "other wastes" such as household waste, certain plastic wastes etc.
• Transboundary Waste Control: enforces a prior informed consent (PIC) procedure for international shipments of hazardous waste, ensuring countries are informed and consent before receiving such waste. 
• New Area of Focus
  • Textile Waste: Textile waste, often mislabelled as donations or recyclables, poses a regulatory challenge—especially for the Global South—due to difficulties in distinguishing it from usable textiles.
  • Shipbreaking: About 15,000 ships will be dismantled in the next 15 years, many containing hazardous substances like POPs and heavy metals. 
    • While the Basel Convention addresses this, overlaps with the Hong Kong Convention create legal and enforcement challenges.

Rotterdam Convention 

• Genesis: Rotterdam Convention on Prior Informed Consent Procedures (PIC) for certain hazardous chemicals and pesticides in international trade entered into force in 2004.
  • India acceded to the Convention in 2006. 
  • Prior Informed Consent (PIC):It is a process to ensure hazardous chemicals aren't exported to countries that don't want them.
  • The Convention has 4 annextures, with 3^rd annexture having the list of banned chemicals and pesticides. 
• Objective: To promote shared responsibility and cooperative efforts among Parties in the international trade of certain hazardous chemicals in order to protect human health and the environment from potential harm.
• Covers: pesticides and industrial chemicals that have been banned or severely restricted for health or environmental reasons.
  Procedure: 
  • The Convention creates legally binding obligations for the implementation of the PIC procedure.
  • It does this by requiring exporters to share information about certain banned or restricted substances through a prior informed consent (PIC) process.
  • It doesn't ban chemicals but promotes informed decisions through information sharing and export controls based on national policies.

Issues 

• Failure to List Hazardous Chemicals:
  • The Rotterdam Convention deferred listing eight hazardous chemicals, including methyl bromide, mercury, and chlorpyrifos.
  • Chlorpyrifos, though banned under the Stockholm Convention, was not listed for information-sharing, exposing weak coordination among treaties.
• Trade Concerns vs Scientific Consensus: Opposition came mainly from producer countries fearing trade impacts. Though listing isn't a ban, nations like Argentina argue it affects exports. 
• Overlapping Treaties: Concerns over overlap with stricter treaties—Montreal Protocol, Minamata, and Stockholm Conventions—add to inaction. 

Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs)

• Genesis: Adopted in 2001 in Stockholm, Sweden; entered into force in 2004. It was ratified by India in 2006.
• Objective:  To protect health and the environment from long-lasting, widespread chemicals that accumulate in humans and wildlife and cause harm.
• Issues
  • Difficulty Regulating Complex Chemicals: Delegates faced difficulty regulating MCCPs(medium-chain chlorinated paraffins), widely used in products like PVC. Their global use made them hard to define. 
  • Excessive Exemption Requests: There was a surge in exemption requests for MCCPs and chlorpyrifos,. This raised concerns about undermining expert guidance. 
  • Industry Misrepresentation : The UV-328 case exposed industry misinformation—it was found in 4,000 planes despite claims of phase-out.