Transboundary Movements and Disposal of Hazardous Wastes in International Law:Basic Documents

This text is a collection of international legal documents related to the current, controversial and politically sensitive issue of transboundary movements of hazardous wastes and their disposal. It should be of use to practicing lawyers and other experts, academics as well as students, concerned with the rapid developments in international environmental law. The global instruments cover the basic system of the UNEP Basel Convention/IAEA Code and the documents of various United Nations organizations, whose interest in hazardous waste movements has increased considerably due to the preparations for the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). Numerous regional instruments included are: those of the UN ECE, OECD, EEC and other organizations of the industrialized states, instruments related to Antarctica; and to the major developing state regions (Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, South Atlantic Zone, Asia and the Pacific), including the 1989 ACP-EEC Lome IV Convention and the 1991 OAU Bamako Convention. Two US treaties on hazardous waste export controls with Mexico and Canada form notable instances of bilateral measures.
Some documents of Greenpeace and other non-governmental organizations are also added. An editors' introduction and a comprehensive general index aim to provide the reader with easy access to these instruments. This work is intended to clarify and aid the increasingly intricate international debate on hazardous waste production and disposal, and reduce the conflict between North and South on the export of such waste to Third World countries. In addition, the prospects of South-South traffic, as developing states push towards industrialization, underline the urgent need for prompt and tough action. The leading role of UNEP is seeking satisfactory solutions to the new environmental problems raised by hazardous wastes is accentuated in the preface to the book by Dr Mostafa K. Tolba, Executive-Director of UNEP.