NGOs Call for Rapid Implementation of Prior Informed Consent
September 14, 1998
On September 10, 1998, ministers and senior officials from
approximately 100 countries signed the Rotterdam Convention on the
Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals
and Pesticides in International Trade. The Convention must be
ratified by 50 governments before it comes into effect. A
coalition of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that had been
involved in the negotiating process welcomed the agreement, and
called for speedy implementation of the Convention as a matter of
priority for both workers and consumers. The coalition included
Consumers International (UK), International Union of Food
Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied
WorkersU Associations (IUF), Netherlands Society for Nature and
Environment, Pesticides Action Network (PAN): Africa, Asia and the
Pacific, Europe, Latin America and North America Regional Centers,
and the Pesticides Trust (UK).
The purpose of the binding Prior Informed Consent (PIC) agreement
is to provide governments with information about certain hazardous
chemicals, and allow them to decide whether imports of the
chemicals should continue. To be included on the list, a pesticide
must be banned or severely restricted for health or environmental
reasons in at least two countries in different regions. Initially,
the agreement will include 22 pesticides* and five industrial
chemicals already covered by the voluntary Prior Informed Consent
(PIC) procedure, with the possibility of more being added.
Barbara Dinham of the Pesticides Trust, part of the PAN network,
said "The need is urgent. There is pressure on global agriculture
to increase production, and developing countries frequently
provide a market for older, cheaper and hazardous pesticides. This
Convention will alert governments to health and environmental
concerns and help them stop unwanted imports."
The coalition of NGOs welcomed the agreement to include "severely
hazardous pesticide formulations" in the Convention. This will
cover pesticides which cause either health or environmental
problems under conditions of use in developing countries or
countries with economies in transition. In these cases, just one
notification that a pesticide will be banned or severely
restricted for health or environmental reasons will be enough to
alert attention and call on the Secretariat to assist in
collecting information needed to assess whether this pesticide
should be put on the PIC list.
But there are still concerns. To be considered for inclusion as a
severely hazardous pesticide formulation, the agreement requires
that information must be compiled on specific incidents in
developing countries, the adverse effects, and the way in which
the formulation was used. NGO experience confirms that evidence at
such a detailed level is extremely difficult to compile. Incidents
take place far from medical facilities and regulatory authorities,
and many farmers are unaware of what pesticides they are using
since pesticides are often sold in unmarked sachets. In many
African countries, poison control centers have not been
established and collecting information on incidents is virtually
impossible.
According to the coalition, the criteria for including chemicals
on the PIC list need to be reviewed on a regular basis. If they do
not prove effective, public interest NGOs will want to see better
and more realistic criteria introduced.
In a press release, the coalition stated, "Making PIC work is the
real challenge which starts now." The coalition pointed out the
PIC Convention will not by itself stop production and use of
hazardous pesticides. More training and better information is the
minimum starting point. Workers and farmers must know what they
are using, and the agrochemical industry must provide easily
accessible information.
PIC is jointly operated by the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) Plant Protection Division and United Nations
Environment Programme (UNEP) through its International Register of
Potentially Toxic Chemicals (IRPTC) in Geneva. The FAO is the
lead agency for operating the PIC scheme for pesticides.
*Pesticides banned or severely restricted: 2,4,5-T, aldrin,
captafol, chlordane, chlordimeform, chlorobenzilate, DDT,
dieldrin, dinoseb and dinoseb salts, 1,2-dibromoethane (EDB),
fluoroacetamide, HCH (mixed isomers), heptachlor,
hexachlorobenzene, lindane, mercury compounds used in agriculture,
pentachlorophenol. Severely hazardous pesticide formulations:
monocrotophos, methamiodophos, phosphamidon, methyl parathion,
parathion.
Final text of the agreement can be viewed on the World Wide Web at
unep.irptc.ch.
Sources: NGO press release, September 10, 1998; UNEP news release
1998/90; Global Pesticide Campaigner, June 1998.
Contact: Barbara Dinham, The Pesticides Trust, 49 Effra Road,
London SW2 1BZ UK; phone (44-171) 274 8895; fax (44-171) 274 9084;
email pesttrust@gn.apc.org.
Peter Hurst, IUF, Rampe du Pont Rouge 8, CH-1213 Petit Lancy
(Geneva) Switzerland; phone (44-22) 793 2233; fax (41-22) 793
2238; email peter.hurst@iuf.org.
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