Prior Informed Consent Advances Towards Full Convention Status

From 8-12 October, delegates from over 110 countries gathered at the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation in Rome to continue negotiating the Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade (PIC). According to observers, the PIC Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (PIC-INC-8) worked diligently throughout the week putting to rest several outstanding issues while bringing the Convention one step closer to full ratification. PIC is intended to regulate the trade of chemicals and pesticides by providing information on the regulatory status of certain hazardous substances, notably to developing countries often lacking the infrastructural capacity to ascertain the level of risk associated with these substances.

Given that PIC is not yet legally binding it has the status of a voluntary agreement and operates according to an interim procedure. As such, much of PIC-INC-8 was spent fine-tuning the rules that will govern its transition from a voluntary agreement to a fully binding convention under international law. Negotiators also focused their attention on the rules governing conflicts of interest which may arise within the PIC Chemical Review Committee (CRC), a sub-committee of chemicals experts mandated to oversee the inclusion of chemicals subject to the PIC Convention.

For their part, both the US and Canada asserted that CRC experts should be permitted to maintain industry affiliations while serving on the committee, while the EC argued that experts should function independently of such interests. The issue went unresolved at PIC INC-8 and will likely be taken up at PIC INC-9, scheduled for 30 September-4 October 2002 in Bonn, Germany.

While developing country participation in the PIC negotiation is quite strong, many developing country representatives felt that more could still be done to encourage their participation in the implementation of the Convention. To this end, the PIC Secretariat underscored its efforts to provide more sub-regional implementation workshops for developing countries and economies in transition. However, funding for such workshops and technical and infrastructural capacity building remains limited. According to some observers, funding for such activities is minimal since development assistance so strongly emphasises the objective of poverty reduction while the economic benefits of a strong PIC remain relatively obscure and difficult to ascertain.

Considerable discussion was also given to PIC's relationship with the UNEP international environmental governance process, a process many feel will strengthen global environmental governance by integrating similar MEAs in the so-called chemicals cluster, notably the Stockholm (persistent organic pollutants) and Basel (hazardous wastes) Conventions. Talk of integrating the MEAs is topical as international environmental governance receives increasing attention in the lead-up to both the WTO Ministerial scheduled for November and the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) scheduled to take place in Johannesburg, South Africa in September 2002.

Thus far, of the 73 countries and regional economic integration organisations that have signed the Rotterdam Convention, 16 have ratified it. The Convention requires 50 ratifications before becoming a legally binding body of law. While it is the ambitious hope of many optimists to have the Rotterdam Convention fully ratified by the WSSD, several observers close to the process are of the view that its full ratification will likely not happen for least another two years.

"Report of the Eighth Session of the INC for an International Legal Binding Instrument for the Application of the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade: 8-12 October 2001," EARTH NEGOTIATIONS BULLETIN, 15 October 2001; ICTSD Internal Files.