Book Description

This book is the first collection of international legal documents related to the new, highly controversial & politically sensitive issue of transboundary movements of hazardous wastes & their disposal. It will be of invaluable assistance to practicing lawyers & 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 & the documents of various United Nations organizations, whose interest with hazardous waste movements has increased considerably due to the preparations for the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment & Development (UNCED). Numerous regional instruments included are: those of the UN ECE, OECD, EEC & other organizations of the industrialized states; instruments related to Antarctica; & to the major developing state regions (Africa, Latin America & the Caribbean, South Atlantic Zone, Asia & the Pacific), including the 1998 ACP-EEC Lome IV Convention & the 1991 OAU Bamako Convention. Two US treaties on hazardous waste export controls with Mexico & Canada form notable instances of bilateral measures. Some documents of Greenpeace & other non-governmental organizations are also added. An incisive Editors' Introduction & a comprehensive general index provide the reader with easy access to these vital instruments. This timely work aims to clarify & aid the increasingly intricate international debate on hazardous waste production & disposal, & reduce the conflict between North & 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 & tough action. The Editors Barbara Kwiatkowska & Alfred Soons, both experienced authors on international law issues have been guided in the preparation of this unique collection by several outstanding experts, members of the Volume's Advisory Board, including Francis Njenga, S ecretary-General, Asian-African Legal Consultative Committee , New Delhi, Peter Sand, Principal Legal Officer, UNCED-Geneva, Henri Smets, Environment Directorate, OECD, Paris, Lee A. Kimball, Senior Associate, World Resources Institute, Washington, D.C. , Hans Lammers, Deputy Legal Adviser, Netherlands Foreign Office, The Hague & Iwona Rummel-Bulska, Chief, Environmental Law & Institutions Unit & Coordinator of the Basel Convention, UNEP-Nairobi/Geneva. The leading role of UNEP in seeking satisfactory solutions to the new environmental problems raised by hazardous wastes is accentuated in the Preface to the book by the honourable Dr Mostafa K. Tolba, E xecutive-Director of UNEP. The 'collective approach is' as he rightly put it 'our only option to care & share the only one Earth'.