History of the Convention

The Stockholm Convention in the making

The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) comes in the wake of sister conventions that are together trying to solve the growing chemical hazards that threaten our planet. In 1989, 116 countries adopted the Basel Convention. It was the first global environmental treaty to regulate transboundary movements of hazardous wastes. In 1998, the Rotterdam Convention on the Prior informed Consent (PIC) Procedure was presented. Its overall objective is to give importing countries the tools they need to identify potential hazards and exclude imports of chemicals that they cannot manage safely.

But the Stockholm Convention goes a step further in the global fight against hazards posed by toxic chemicals. As from 1997, in response to widespread recognition of the human and environmental risks posed by Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) was mandated by the UNEP to prepare an international legally binding instrument on certain POPs. To begin with, an initial list of 12 substances was established. These 12 initially targeted POPs were identified and agreed upon as being a global threat by the Intergovernmental Forum on Chemical Safety (IFCS), UNEP Governing Council (UNEP GC), and the World Health Organisation (WHO).

The global consensus on the need to tackle POPs brought significant progress in negotiations. An agreement on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) was reached in Johannesburg in South Africa in 2000.

151 countries have signed the Stockholm Convention and 82 are parties to it. The POPs Convention mandates national action plans against certain by-products of combustion like dioxins and recommends the use of best available techniques on new sources of POPs by-products. Negotiators have agreed that the Convention must have criteria and a procedure to identify additional POPs as candidates for future international action.