Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure in United States

Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure

Title of the convention

Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade

About the Rotterdam Convention

The Convention creates a legally binding obligation for the implementation of a Prior Informed Consent (PIC) procedure. It replaces an existing voluntary PIC procedure operated by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) since 1989, and takes into account experience gained during the implementation of the voluntary procedure.

The objectives of the Convention are to:

promote shared responsibility and co-operative efforts among Parties in the international trade of listed hazardous chemicals in order to protect human health and the environment from potential harm; and

contribute to the environmentally sound use of those hazardous chemicals, by facilitating information exchange about their characteristics, by providing for a national decision-making process on their import and export and by disseminating these decisions to Parties.

The Convention was adopted at Rotterdam on 10 September 1998. At this time a resolution was agreed for the provisions of the Convention to operate on an interim basis until the Convention enters into force. UNEP and FAO are jointly performing the Secretariat functions for the Convention during the interim period.

The Convention establishes a “Prior Informed Consent” procedure as a means for formally obtaining and disseminating the decisions of importing countries as to whether they wish to receive future shipments of certain hazardous chemicals and for ensuring compliance with those decisions by exporting countries. The Convention also contains provisions for the exchange of information among Parties about these chemicals. All Parties must designate a national authority to perform the administrative functions.

Initially 22 pesticides and 5 industrial chemicals are subject to the PIC procedure. Many more are expected to be added in the future and Annex 2 of the Convention identifies the criteria for listing additional chemicals. An additional 4 chemicals have recently been added to the interim arrangements as they were deemed to have met the criteria for PIC inclusion. One notification from two specified regions triggers consideration of addition of a chemical to the Convention. The composition of the regions will be determined at the first meeting of the Conference of Parties. Severely hazardous pesticide formulations that present a hazard under conditions of use in developing countries or countries with economies in transition may also be nominated for inclusion.

Once a chemical is included in the PIC procedure, a “decision guidance document” (DGD) containing information concerning the chemical and the regulatory decisions to ban or severely restrict it for health or environmental reasons, is circulated to each Party. Parties are given nine months to prepare a response concerning the future import of a chemical. The response can consist of either a final decision (to allow import of the chemical, not to allow import, or to allow import subject to specified conditions) or an interim response. Decisions by an importing country must be trade neutral.

The Convention establishes a Conference of the Parties to oversee implementation. A subsidiary body, the Chemical Review Committee, is also established to review notifications and nominations from regions and to make recommendations on the inclusion of additional substances in the Convention.

In 2004, 49 countries plus the European Commission have ratified the Rotterdam Convention and a number of others have indicated that they will ratify shortly.