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The 8th Meeting of Conference of the Parties of the Rotterdam Convention and the inclusion of chrysotile in Annex III

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The eighth meeting of Conference of the Parties of the Rotterdam Convention was held in Geveva, Switzerland from 23rd April to 5th May 2017 with the participation of 157 official parties of the Convention, parties on probation and international organizations, and non-governmental organizations such as WHO, ROCA, IndustriALL Global Union and International Chrysotile Association.

Rotterdam Convention

Rotterdam Convention is a multilateral treaty to promote cooperation and shared responsibility among the Parties in relation to importation of hazardous chemicals and pesticides. The provisions of Rotterdam Convention aim to protect human health and environment from any potential risks caused by hazardous substances. The Convention contributes to the proper use of these substances by promoting information sharing on the characteristics of chemicals and supporting the national decision-making process on the importation of these substances. The first meeting of Conference of the Parties of the Rotterdam Convention was organized in Geneva, Switzerland in 2004.

The inclusion of chrysotile in Annex III was first mentioned in COP2 2005 and was officially proposed in COP3 2008. However, it has not reached the consensus from all members of the Convention.

Rotterdam Convention 2017

The meeting on 3rd May 2017 gained a lot of attention of participants because it mentioned the inclusion of chrysotile in Annex III raised by the Chemical Review Committee. 22 parties of the Convention and 5 non-party representatives contributed their positions on this proposal, in which:

  • 15 parties supported the proposal of the inclusion of chrysotile in Annex III, which were Canada, Ecuador, Nepal, Congo, Columbia, the European Union, Uruguay, Malaysia, Nigeria, Norway, Tonga, Senegal, Serbia, Peru and Australia.
  • 7 parties opposed the proposal of the inclusion of chrysotile in Annex III namely The Russian Federation, India, Zimbabwe, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Syria và Belarus. These countries opposed the proposal due to the lack of convincing evidence on health risks caused by chrysotile.
  • 4 non-party representatives supporting the proposal including Iraq, the World Health Organization (WHO), the Rotterdam Convention Alliance (ROCA) and the Global Union IndustruALL (IndustriALL).
  • 1 non-party representative opposed the proposal was the International Alliance of Chrysotile Trade Unions.

The proposal of amending the Article 22

Especially, with the intention of inclusion chrysotile in Annex III, a group of 12 African countries namely Botswana, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Swaziland, Tanzania and Zambia has proposed to amend the Articles 22 in order to change the voting process of chemicals raised by the Chemical Review Committee. These countries were aiming at abolishing the consensus mechanism of the Convention and shifting to the majority compliance decision-making mechanism. As the number of opposing parties was only the minority, the inclusion of chrysotile in Annex III of the Convention, which has not been concluded for many years, will come true if the Article 22 is amended.

Article 22 of the Rotterdam Convention: Adoption and amendment of annexes

The Sub-article 4 of the Article 22 (is proposed to remove) mentions the procedures of the proposal, adoption and entry into force of amendments to the Annex III:

  • The amendment of the Annex III will be proposed and discussed according to the procedures indicated from the Article 5 to the Article 9 and the Paragraph 2 of the Article 21.
  • The Conference of the Parties will make the final decision on the application based on the Principle of Consensus.

The decision on the amendment of the Annex III will be informed to all parties by the Convention Committee. Time of applying revised provisions to all parties will be informed in the Decision.

Most of the meeting time was for discussing the proposal of admending the Article 22 of the Rotterdam Convention.

Parties supporting the amendment of the Article 22 include 12 African countries, Yemen, The European Union (EU), Canada, Japan, Columbia, Norway, Switzerland, Maldives, and organization namely the International Positive Education Network (IPEN), the Global Union (IndustriALL) and the Pesticide Action Network (PAN). These countries and organizations expressed their concern about the effectiveness of the Convention.

There were 14 countries including India, China, and Russia opposing the amendment of the Article 22. The consensus method is the fundamental operation method of the Rotterdam Convention, any change may disrupt the global integrity of the Rotterdam Convention.

The group of African countries, supported by anti-asbestos countries, was working hard to remove the Principle of Consensus of the Rotterdam Convention. This group acted as the representative of the whole of Africa. However, due to the pressure from other parties, the President Perrez himself corrected that this was only a small group of African countries. The argument of these countries was that the Rotterdam Convention has been becoming ineffective as the proposal on the inclusion of some chemicals in Annex III has been made for years but it has not been implemented yet.

Big countries, such as India, China and the Russian Federation, all objected to the amendment of the Article 22, which make the proposal difficult to implement. In addition, many countries also expressed their concern about changing the operation procedures of the Convention as this could wreck the Rotterdam Convention.