May 17, 2005
After years of effort by governments, indigenous organizations, and environment and health groups throughout the world, a milestone in international chemicals management was reached today when the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPS) entered into force. “This landmark treaty addresses an entire class of some of the most dangerous synthetic chemicals known,” said CIEL Senior Attorney Glenn Wiser. “The Stockholm Convention bans or severely restricts the production and use of 12 of the world’s most dangerous chemicals, and it establishes a multilateral, science-based process for identifying and adding other chemicals with similarly dangerous characteristics to the treaty.”
POPs are synthetic, toxic chemicals that persist for long periods of time in the environment, are often carried long distances by wind or water currents, and concentrate in wildlife and people to levels that may cause cancer, neurological damage, and reproductive and immunological disorders. They are especially dangerous for children, and are passed from mothers to their children in the womb and in breast milk.
Notably absent from the first fifty-nine parties to the Convention is the United States. “Although President Bush promised in 2001 to support the treaty that it inherited from the Clinton Administration, this administration has stymied U.S. ratification by insisting that the required implementing amendments to U.S. law bear the stamp of its anti-regulatory, unilateralist ideology,” said Wiser. “CIEL intends to continue pushing hard to reform U.S. chemicals law, and to ensure that the United States ratifies and faithfully implements every part of the Stockholm Convention, especially its provisions for dealing with additional, dangerous POPs.”