Croatia’s September 6th deposit of ratification of the 1995 Basel Ban Amendment has allowed this global waste dumping prohibition to finally enter into the force of international law.
The Ban Amendment, adopted by the parties to the Basel Convention in 1995, prohibits the export of hazardous wastes from member states of the European Union, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and Liechtenstein to all other countries.
With Croatia’s ratification, a total of 97 countries have now ratified the ban and most crucially the necessary 3/4 of the parties that were present and voting in 1995. The agreement will become a new Article in the Convention and will enter into force for the 97 countries after 90 days – December 5, 2019.
“The Basel Ban is very important to the many countries around the world that each day receive hundreds of containers of unwanted hazardous electronic and contaminated household wastes with much of that waste contaminating their environment and harming their population,” said Jim Puckett, founder and director of the Basel Action Network (BAN).
Only countries that were parties present at the third meeting of the Basel Convention that took place in 1995 can be counted for entry into force.
Still noticeably absent from the list of countries having ratified the ban are the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Russia, India, Brazil, and Mexico. “There can be no excuse for using the developing world as a convenient dumping ground for hazardous wastes, under the guise of recycling,” said Puckett. “Once the Basel Ban enters into force, the crime of waste trade should be abundantly clear to those countries and industries now horribly complicit with this e-waste tragedy.”
Published in the October 2019 Edition
