Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution on Persistent Organic Pollutants in the United States

Article 7
Strategies, Policies, Programmes, Measures and Information

1. Each Party shall, no later than six months after the date on
which this Protocol enters into force for it, develop
strategies, policies and programmes in order to discharge
its obligations under the present Protocol.

2. Each Party shall:

(a) Encourage the use of economically feasible, environmentally
sound management techniques, including best environmental
practices, with respect to all aspects of the use, production,
release, processing, distribution, handling, transport and
reprocessing of substances subject to the present Protocol
and manufactured articles, mixtures or solutions
containing such substances;

(b) Encourage the implementation of other management programmes
to reduce emissions of persistent organic pollutants,
including voluntary programmes and the use of economic
instruments;

(c) Consider the adoption of additional policies and measures
as appropriate in its particular circumstances, which may include
non-regulatory approaches;

(d) Make determined efforts that are economically feasible to
reduce levels of substances subject to the present Protocol that
re contained as contaminants in other substances, chemical products
or manufactured articles, as soon as the relevance of the source
has been established;

(e) Take into consideration in its programmes for
evaluating substances, the characteristics specified in paragraph 1
of Executive Body decision 1998/2 on information to be submitted
and procedures for adding substances to annex I, II or III,
including any amendments thereto.

3. The Parties may take more stringent measures than those required
by the present Protocol.

Article 8
Research, Development and Monitoring

The Parties shall encourage research, development, monitoring
and cooperation related, but not limited, to:

(a) Emissions, long-range transport and deposition levels and
their modelling, existing levels in the biotic and abiotic
environment, the elaboration of procedures for harmonizing
relevant methodologies;

(b) Pollutant pathways and inventories in representative
ecosystems;

(c) Relevant effects on human health and the environment,
including quantification of those effects;

(d) Best available techniques and practices, including
agricultural practices, and emission control techniques and
practices currently employed by the Parties or under development;

(e) Methodologies permitting consideration of socio-economic
factors in the evaluation of alternative control
strategies;

(f) An effects-based approach which integrates
appropriate information, including information obtained
under subparagraphs (a) to (e) above, on measured or
modelled environmental levels, pathways, and effects on human health
and the environment, for the purpose of formulating future
control strategies which also take into account economic
and technological factors;

(g) Methods for estimating national emissions and projecting
future emissions of individual persistent organic pollutants and
for evaluating how such estimates and projections can be used
to structure future obligations;

(h) Levels of substances subject to the present Protocol that
are contained as contaminants in other substances, chemical products
or manufactured articles and the significance of these levels for
long-range transport, as well as techniques to reduce levels of
these contaminants, and, in addition, levels of persistent
organic pollutants generated during the life cycle of timber
treated with pentachlorophenol.

Priority should be given to research on substances considered to be
the most likely to be submitted under the procedures specified
in article 14, paragraph 6.

Article 9
Reporting

1. Subject to its laws governing the confidentiality of
commercial information:

(a) Each Party shall report, through the Executive Secretary of
the Commission, to the Executive Body, on a periodic basis as
determined by the Parties meeting within the Executive Body,
information on the measures that it has taken to implement the
present Protocol;

(b) Each Party within the geographical scope of EMEP shall
report, through the Executive Secretary of the Commission, to EMEP, on
a periodic basis to be determined by the Steering Body of EMEP
and approved by the Parties at a session of the Executive
Body, information on the levels of emissions of persistent
organic pollutants using, as a minimum, the methodologies and
the temporal and spatial resolution specified by the Steering
Body of EMEP. Parties in areas outside the geographical scope of
EMEP shall make available similar information
to the Executive Body if requested to do so. Each Party shall
also provide information on the levels of emissions of the
substances listed in annex III for the reference year specified in
that annex.

2. The information to be reported in accordance with paragraph 1
(a) above shall be in conformity with a decision regarding format
and content to be adopted by the Parties at a session of the
Executive Body. The terms of this decision shall be reviewed
as necessary to identify any additional elements regarding the format
or the content of the information that is to be included in the
reports.

3. In good time before each annual session of the Executive Body,
EMEP shall provide information on the long-range transport
and deposition of persistent organic pollutants.

Article 10
Reviews by the Parties at Sessions of the Executives Body

1. The Parties shall, at sessions of the Executive Body, pursuant
to article 10, paragraph 2 (a), of the Convention, review
the information supplied by the Parties, EMEP and other
subsidiary bodies, and the reports of the Implementation
Committee referred to in article 11 of the present
Protocol.

2. The Parties shall, at sessions of the Executive Body, keep
under review the progress made towards achieving the obligations set
out in the present Protocol.

3. The Parties shall, at sessions of the Executive Body, review
the sufficiency and effectiveness of the obligations set out in
the present Protocol. Such reviews will take into account the
best available scientific information on the effects of the
deposition of persistent organic pollutants, assessments
of technological developments, changing economic conditions and
the fulfilment of the obligations on emission levels. The
procedures, methods and timing for such reviews shall be specified
by the Parties at a session of the Executive Body.
The first such review shall be completed no later than three years
after the present Protocol enters into
force.