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Introduction
The Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade was adopted in 1998 and entered into force in 2004. As of February 2019, it has 161 parties and thus its coverage is global. The main objective of the Convention is to promote shared responsibility and cooperative efforts among Parties in the international trade of certain hazardous chemicals in order to protect human health and the environment from potential harm and to contribute to their environmentally sound use.
Its key provisions include (1) a Prior Informed Consent procedure which provides for a national decision-making process on import of hazardous chemicals listed under the Convention and seeks to ensure compliance with these decisions by exporting Parties and (2) exchange of information on a broad range of potentially hazardous chemicals.
The Rotterdam Convention serves as a first line of protection for Parties against the unwanted import of potentially harmful hazardous pesticides and industrial chemicals. The Convention covers 50 pesticides and industrial chemicals that have been banned or severely restricted for health or environmental reasons by Parties and which have been notified by Parties for inclusion in the Prior Informed Consent procedure.
Some insecticides, herbicides and fungicides are vital to modern agriculture, protecting food and other crops from excessive damage by pests and diseases, and protecting human and livestock health from vector-borne diseases. However, pesticides can affect a wide variety of non-target organisms, including beneficial soil microorganisms, decreasing ecosystem resilience and reducing soil fertility, thereby undermining food security. Once used, pesticides accumulate in the air or water or on land, where they can harm non-target species and diminish biodiversity. By contaminating groundwater, lakes, rivers and other bodies of water, pesticides pollute drinking supplies, fish and other resources that are vital for human wellbeing. By polluting soil, they can endanger farmers at work and children at play. Although developing countries use only 25% of the world pesticide production, they experience 99% of deaths due to pesticide exposure . Poor people often use severely hazardous pesticide formulations rather than safer alternatives.
Hazardous pesticides have different impact on the life quality of women, men, children and other groups interacting with their health directly and indirectly and with the environment that is surrounding them. Globally in 2013, 3.3 million cases of human poisonings were reported, almost the same as those injured from assaults with firearms (3.6 million). On a yearly basis, it is estimated that excessive exposure to and inappropriate use of pesticides contribute to poisoning a minimum of 3 million people, especially impoverished rural workers.
Industrial chemicals are essential to contribute in numerous ways to establish and/or preserve an elevated standard of living in countries at all stages of development. They play an important part in different fields such as healthcare, food production and telecommunications. Under certain conditions, the large-scale production and use of certain chemicals may result in the degradation of our environment and adverse impact to human health and wildlife. Furthermore, while most countries have review and regulatory programmes for pesticides, they lack similar programmes for industrial chemicals, resulting in difficulties for these countries to take informed decisions about the import of industrial chemicals.
While the Rotterdam Convention requires Member States to take actions on the country level to reach its objectives, it also plays an important role for striving toward empowering people and ensuring inclusiveness and equality. The world’s poorest 3.5 billion people largely directly rely on the environment for their basic services (water, food, shelter etc.). Protection of health of farmers but also the general public from the use of toxic pesticides and the food safety need to be safeguarded and this is where the Rotterdam Convention plays an important role. Millions of workers and the general public all together are exposed to harmful effects of industrial chemicals and all, rich and poor should be protected from the exposure.
