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Basel Convention on Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes Fact Sheet released by the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, Department of State, September 15, 1998.

The Basel Convention on Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes, which was completed in 1989, controls the international trade in hazardous wastes. Under the Convention's provisions, trade in hazardous wastes cannot take place without the importing country's written consent or under conditions in which the wastes cannot be handled in an environmentally sound manner. The Convention has been successful in minimizing the indiscriminate dumping of hazardous wastes, in particular in developing countries lacking adequate waste management facilities or capabilities.

The United States signed the Convention in 1989 and the Senate provided its advice and consent to ratification in 1992. However, before the United States can formally ratify the Basel Convention, domestic legislation must be in place to implement all of the Convention's requirements. For example, while U.S. law already requires the written consent of an importing country before a hazardous waste is exported from the United States, there are no provisions for ensuring that wastes sent without proper authorization are repatriated, a requirement under the Basel Convention.

Legislation was being considered in the Congress in 1993 that would have allowed U.S. ratification of Basel. However, U.S. ratification efforts stalled due to concerns over the decision of the Basel Convention Parties to amend the Convention to ban all exports of hazardous waste -- whether for disposal or recycling -- from OECD countries to non-OECD countries. Although this amendment has not entered into force (only eight of the requisite 63 countries have ratified the amendment), there have been particular concerns expressed over the possibility that because the Basel Parties had not yet defined in detail what specific substances would be considered to be hazardous wastes under the Convention, this ban could affect the trade in such things as secondary recyclable materials like scrap metal and scrap paper. Impacts on the legitimate trade in such materials would have negative environmental and economic effects.

Since that time, the Basel Parties have made tremendous progress in clarifying which wastes are subject to the Convention and which wastes are not. New lists developed by the Basel Technical Working Group make clear that secondary recyclable materials such as scrap metal and scrap paper are not covered by the Basel Convention, thus ensuring that the Convention will not impact on trade flows in these products. These lists of hazardous wastes were incorporated into the legal framework of the Basel Convention during the fourth Conference of Parties to the Convention, held in Malaysia February 23-27, 1998. U.S. agencies are now examining the possibility of introducing implementing legislation to allow the United States to ratify the Convention.

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