Global toxics treaties: U.S leadership opportunity slips away--.

Once again, the U.S. is squandering an opportunity for leadership in the international environmental policy arena. As the Bush administration continues to backtrack on environmental protection at home and abroad, these opportunities are increasingly few and far between. The issues at hand are global elimination of persistent chemicals and control of trade in toxics, and the opportunity is early ratification of two international treaties that effectively address these challenges: the Stockholm and Rotterdam conventions. Fast action from the White House and the Senate could still make a difference.

Many NGOs (nongovernmental organizations), including the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) International and the International POPs (Persistent Organic Pollutants) Elimination Network (IPEN), called on nations around the world to bring these important treaties into effect before the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa. Both treaties require fifty ratifications before implementation can begin. As of September 2002, 21 countries had ratified the Stockholm Convention, and 27 had ratified the Rotterdam Convention. The U.S. has yet to ratify either.

The chemicals addressed under the Stockholm Convention are persistent organic pollutants. These toxic substances currently are transported across the globe, persist in the environment, accumulate in the body fat of humans and animals, and concentrate up the food chain. Even at very low levels of exposure, POPs can cause reproductive and developmental disorders, damage to the immune and nervous systems, and a range of cancers. Exposure during key phases of fetal development can be particularly damaging, and infants around the world are born with an array of POPs already in their blood. POPs are found in today's U.S. food supply, even though many of the chemicals in question have been banned in the U.S. for decades.

The global nature of these pollutants led the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) to sponsor extensive negotiations that culminated in the signing of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants on May 23, 2001, by 91 countries as well as the European Union. The treaty identifies an initial list of twelve POPs slated for elimination. Nine of the 12 (aldrin, endrin, dieldrin, chlordane, dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT), heptachlor, hexachlorobenzene, mirex, and toxaphene) are pesticides that have been targeted for elimination by NGOs around the world since the early 1980s. The other chemicals on the convention's initial list are polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dioxins, and furans. The nine listed pesticides and PCBs have already been banned in the U.S., some--like DDT--for decades. The U.S. continues to produce dioxins and furans as byproducts of chlorine-based industries and waste incineration.

The Stockholm Convention establishes various timetables for the elimination of the listed POP chemicals. Provisions specific to the ever-controversial DDT call for its ultimate elimination but allow interim use of the pesticide for malaria vector control, if use is accompanied by aggressive efforts to develop and implement safe and effective alternatives. DDT is currently used to control malaria in about two dozen countries, mostly in Africa.

The Rotterdam Convention is a complementary treaty providing important controls on international trade of highly toxic chemicals. This convention, signed by 73 nations in 1998, is the formalization of a voluntary Prior Informed Consent (PIC) procedure administered jointly by UNEP and the Food and Agriculture Organization since 1989. The Rotterdam Convention requires that any country importing pesticides and certain other hazardous chemicals must be informed of bans or severe restrictions on that chemical in other countries. This gives receiving countries the option of refusing shipments of chemicals on the grounds that they may be harmful to the environment or to the health of their populations.

U.S. customs records from U.S. ports reveal that more than 3.2 billion pounds of pesticides crossed international borders between 1997 and 2000. Nearly 65 million pounds of this total were pesticides that have either been banned or are severely restricted in the United States. Developing countries often lack the capacity to adequately evaluate and regulate highly toxic chemicals imported from their northern neighbors. The PIC procedure is the international community's response to this inequity, and it continues to be implemented on a voluntary basis, while the treaty accumulates the 50 ratifications needed to enter into force. Although the convention could be strengthened--some analysts believe that the rules for adding chemicals to the PIC list are designed to limit the number of new substances--it represents an important tool to help the international community monitor and control the world's massive trade in dangerous substances.

Key Points

* The Stockholm Convention aims to eliminate a class of chemicals that the international community has agreed is extremely dangerous to human health and the environment.

* A complementary treaty, the Rotterdam Convention, offers important controls on the international trade of highly toxic chemicals.

* The U.S is missing an opportunity for global environmental leadership by delaying ratification of these two treaties.

Kristin S. Schafer, Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA)