To
Shri Bishwanath
Sinha
Joint Secretary
Union Ministry
of Environment, Forests & Climate Change
Government of India
Subject: Why India should support Ban Amendment to UN’s Basel
Convention on Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes and Their
Disposal to prevent dumping of toxic waste
Sir,
With reference to the invitation from Union Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change seeking comments and suggestions on matters of the Basel Convention (BC), Rotterdam Convention (RC) and Stockholm Convention (RC) and with regard to an inconsistent position taken by one of the Indian delegates at the thirteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN’s Basel Convention (BC COP13) on Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, we submit the following:
1. We are distressed to learn that on the opening
day of the BC COP13 India’s official delegation shocked the UN Meeting with its statement
in opposition
to UN accord
to stop the flow of hazardous wastes from developed to
developing countries like India. This is akin to
opposing Hon’ble Prime
Minister’s Clean India Mission and is in violation of Hon’ble Supreme Court’s
verdict in Writ
Petition (Civil) No.657 of 1995;
2. We have learnt that Dr Sonu Singh, one of the official delegates from our country gave a speech crticising the
Ban Amendment to Basel Convention on Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes and Their
Disposal. He lowered the stature
of India and its scientific community by claiming
that the Ban Amendment is contrary to sustainable consumption and the circular
economy as well as the Sustainable Development Goals. He made a bizaare claim that India
allows imports of hazardous waste under careful conditions and this is part of its national strategy. India
was the ONLY country which made
such a statement. How can he make claims about non-existent services and infrastructure to
deal with their hazardous waste and other wastes in the absence of required
infrastructure like laboratories, treatment facilities and land in the country
which can be used for testing samples of imported waste and treatment and
landfills? Our India cannot be turned into a land of
landfills for foreign hazardous wastes. Unless all the
waste that is generated in our own country has been
treated and disposed of in an environmentally sound manner how can hazardous waste
import be permitted?;
3. This is an admission that trade in
hazardous waste will happen in a business as usual manner
unmindful of Hon’ble Prime Minister’s Clean India Mission
and Hon’ble Court’s verdict. This position is inconsistent with National Environment Policy that includes strategies for cleanup of
toxic and hazardous waste dump legacies, developing a national inventory of
such dumps, an online monitoring system for movement of hazardous wastes and
taking legal measures for addressing emergencies arising out of transportation,
handling, and disposal of hazardous wastes. All other
Parties who spoke at CoP 13 voiced their very
strong support for the Ban Amendment. This delegates’s position
is inconsistent with our Hon’ble Prime Minister’s Clean India Mission as well;
4. According to the verdict
of Hon’ble Court, “Hazardous Wastes are highly toxic in nature.
The industrialization has had the effect of generation of huge quantities of
hazardous wastes. These and other side effects of development gave birth
to principles of sustainable development so as to sustain industrial growth.
The hazardous waste required adequate and proper control and handling.
Efforts are required to be made to minimise it. In developing nations,
there are additional problems including that of dumping of hazardous waste on
their lands by some of the nations where cost of destruction of such waste is
felt very heavy. These and other allied problems gave birth to Basel
Convention.” This verdict has been given in Writ Petition
(Civil) No.657 of 1995. The Convention was made part of its
order by the Hon’ble Court due to alarming situation
created by dumping of hazardous waste, its generation and serious and
irreversible damage, as a result thereof, to the environment, flora and fauna,
health of animals and human beings. Hon’ble Court took
cognizance of dumping of hazardous wastes in Indian waters as violation
of Article 14 and 21 of the Constitution of India. It is evident from it that the position of this Indian
delegate betrays his ignorance about the issue;
5. We wish inform
you that such motivated
attempts have attracted widespread criticism from
environment, public health groups and even the Confederation of Indian Industry
(CII) when hazardous wastes and hazardous materials and
recyclable materials was being made synonymous. by redefining "hazardous waste"
as "hazardous material" in a manifest act of linguistic
corruption. It is noteworthy that in a study, Associated Chambers of Commerce & Industry (ASSOCHAM) also recommended ban on trade in hazardous wastes. Two members of Hon’ble Court's own
monitoring committee on hazardous wastes have also raised
objections They who are complicit in promoting hazardous waste
dumping in our country are doing so at the behest of hazardous waste
traders. Their role needs to be probed;
6. We wish to draw your attention towards the fact that European Union has fully implemented the Basel Ban in
its Waste Shipment Regulation, making it legally binding in all EU member
states. Norway and Switzerland have similarly fully implemented the Basel Ban
in their legislation. In the light of
the blockage concerning the entry into force of the Ban amendment, a
“Country-led Initiative” (CLI) was launched which
was adopted at
COP10 of the Basel Convention on Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes and Their
Disposal, the opponents of the Ban Amendment agreed to stand down and not to publicly
fight against it
anymore. Such
statement from the Indian delegate in question is quite at variance with India’s Clean India Mission which
is so dear to our Hon’ble Prime Minister;
7. We are quite disgusted to
hear this delegate making an unscientific claim saying
that the Basel Ban Amendment works against Sustainable Development Goals. How can he be allowed to make baseless claims to the
effect that India’s
technology is infallible to import of hazardous wastes. Such statements are contrary to India’s public health and exposes India’s
insensitivity towards environmental health. It is unbecoming of India’s statuture to take such a position
at a UN meeting. This is not the way to make Clean India Mission sucessful as desired by
our Hon’ble Prime Minister;
8. We wish to draw
your attention towards Basel
Convention’s very clear and simple definition of waste:
wastes are materials which are disposed of, or intended to be disposed of, or
required to be disposed of, to the environment”. Hon’ble Court’s verdict has directed the Union of India
to incorporate the Basel list in the existing Rules and had actively argued for
expanding the list of prohibited items for import;
9. We submit that
the position ariculated by our delegate is in complete contrast to the
revised EU Waste Shipment Regulations, to which all EU member nations need to
comply. The new EU rules now require a tracking document to accompany shipments
of non-hazardous materials designated as waste, including recyclables. But the
scrap industry feels that the complexity of information required by the new EU
rules was totally illogical, complaining that it did not offer clear
environment benefit. If senior officials endorse this anti-India
position of Dr Singh then it amounts to a formal announcement that India is welcoming globalisation of the toxic hazardous waste and it arrival in Indian waters. India
should call for the development of guidance to aid countries to help prohibit efforts to reclassify hazardous waste as non-waste in an exercise of circuitous
defintition. Hazardous waste exporters from rich
countries have been consistently seeking to export toxic scrap to India and
likewise, there has been a similar trend amongst businesses in the India to
import such waste. This is being done despite the fact that National
Environment Policy acknowledges how "Environmental factors are estimated
as being responsible in some cases for nearly 20 percent of the burden of
disease in India";
10. We urge you to
review the position taken by Dr Sonu Singh and articulate Government of India’s intention to
ratify the Ban Amendment to Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary
Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal. India missed the opportunity
of ratifying it before the Twelfth Conference of the Parties held in Geneva
during 4-15 May, 2015.
11. We submit that
India must take a principled stand in tune with the main principles of this UN treaty which are: transboundary movements of hazardous wastes should be
reduced to a minimum consistent with their environmentally sound management;
hazardous wastes should be treated and disposed of as close as possible to
their source of generation; and hazardous waste generation should be reduced
and minimized at source. This position of Dr
Singh is contrary to these principles and stands in manifest contrast
with its position in 1992.
12. You may
recollect that by decision
III/1, of September 22, 1995, at COP-3, the Third meeting of the Conference of
the Contracting Parties to the above Convention that took place in Geneva in
September 1995, adopted an Amendment to the Convention. This bans the export of
hazardous wastes for final disposal and recycling from rich countries to poorer
countries. This Article reads as follows: “Instruments of ratification,
approval, formal confirmation or acceptance of amendments shall be deposited
with the Depositary. Amendments adopted in accordance with paragraphs 3 or 4
[of article 17 of the Convention] shall enter into force between Parties having
accepted them on the ninetieth day after the receipt by the Depositary of their
instrument of ratification, approval, formal confirmation or acceptance by at
least three-fourths of the Parties who accepted them or by at least two thirds
of the Parties to the protocol concerned who accepted them, except as may
otherwise be provided in such protocol. The amendments shall enter into force for
any other Party on the ninetieth day after that Party deposits its instrument
of ratification, approval, formal confirmation or acceptance of the
amendments.” The Ban Amendment has not entered into force
despite the fact that 89 parties have accepted
it becasue that requires ratification by 3/4 of the
member states to the Convention as per Article 17.5. So far, the
Parties of the Basel Convention have not been able to agree as to whether
this would be three fourth of the Parties that were Party to the Basel
Convention when the Ban was adopted, or three fourth of the current Parties of
the Convention. This amendment
was to enter into force following ratification by 62 parties as per Article 17
(5) of the Convention. Ban Amendment needs ratification of only 12 more members for it to come into
force. We submit that the parent
treaty, the Basel Convention has been ratified by 183 countries;
13. Under the influence of countries like
USA, Germany, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, South Korea and Japan in
general and U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the world’s largest business federation
representing the interests of more than 3 million businesses, International
Chamber of Commerce, US Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries and Bureau of
International Recycling (BIR), the international trade federation representing
the world’s recycling industry, India’s position have faced continued dilution. These countries
and interests never wished Convention, Ban Amendment and
compliant Rules to come into force;
14.
As part of Clean
India Mission, our Government should try to
regain its original stance of being a strong opponent of the international
waste trade and an ardent supporter ban on toxic waste exports from the world’s
richest countries to less industrialized ones. Government of India should
recollect its position at the First Conference of Parties to the Basel
Convention in Piriapolis, Uruguay, from 3-4 December, 1992. Shri A.
Bhattacharja, Head of the Indian delegation who pleaded with industrialized
countries to stop exporting hazardous waste. “You industrial countries have
been asking us to do many things for the global good — to stop cutting down our
forests, to stop using your CFCs. Now we are asking you to do something for the
global good: keep your own waste.” Government of India was
firm even at the Second Basel Convention Conference of Parties, in March 1994
and advocated ban on all hazardous waste exports from the world’s most
industrialized countries, the members of the Organization of Economic Cooperation
and Development (OECD) to non-industrialized countries like India. It was only in 1995 that Government of India revised its
position at the Third Basel Conference of Parties in September 1995 under the
harmful influence of representatives of the US and Australia. This led to an Indian delegate announcing that it was
reconsidering its position on the Basel Ban as a consequence of the
regressive statement of Shri Kamal Nath, the then Union Minister of Environment
& Forests who averred, “We are against environmentally unfriendly
recycling. We are not against the movement of waste, provided the recipient has
adequate equipment, facility and the proper process to deal with it.” This was
a direct assault on intent of Basel Convention. It was the first nail in the
coffin. Consequently, India did not ratify the ‘Ban Amendment’ to the Basel
Convention, which could have stopped the import of hazardous waste and stopped
India from becoming a leading dumping ground;
15.
We submit that US
Government and ICC have been instrumental in outwitting the UN ban on hazardous
waste trade through bilateral Free Trade Agreements between countries. In one
of its position paper on the Basel Convention, ICC has even called for the ban
on hazardous waste to be stopped by the World Trade Organization (WTO) because
it is trade disruptive. This undermines the customary environmental law
principles. It is noeowrthy that Wikileaks has revealed
how the US Government ensured that the same Shri Kamal Nath was not made the
Commerce Minister again for his position in WTO negotiations in a different
context;
16.
To safeguard our country’s environmental security and
maritime security, India
should not allow itself to be misled by hazardous
waste traders who are blinded by their lust for profit at any human and
environmental cost. In any case the truth about who all were immorally,
unethically and unpatriotically complicit with merchants of death, the
hazardous waste traders and who all defended public health will not remain
hidden for long. It is high time
the present Government disassociated itself from the regressive legacy and adopted
its glorious legacy to safeguard India’s supreme national interest and the
health of present and future generations;
In view of the above facts, before the UN meeting ends on May 5, Government should
articulate its support for Ban
Amendment and ratify it in order to save
India from becoming the dumping ground of rich countries which are transferring
harm becasue they want to protect their own environment and public health.
The review of Dr Sonu Singh’s position provides a chance
to recover the lost ground and re-adopt our 1992 position
and ask the rich countries to “keep your own waste” for global common good. We earnestly appeal to you to ensure that foreign toxic waste
does not flow in the veins and arteries of present and future Indians.
Thanking you in anticipation
Warm
Regards
Dr Gopal Krishna
ToxicsWatch Alliance (TWA)
Mb: 08227816731, 09818089660
E-mail-1715krishna@gmail.com
Web: www.toxicswatch.org
Dr Gopal Krishna
ToxicsWatch Alliance (TWA)
Mb: 08227816731, 09818089660
E-mail-1715krishna@gmail.com
Web: www.toxicswatch.org
Cc
Shri Anil Madhav Dave, Union Ministry
of Environment, Forests & Climate Change
Shri Nripendra Misra, Principal
Secretary to Prime Minister
Shri Pradeep Kumar Sinha, Cabinet Secretary
Shri Ajit Doval, National Security
Advisor
Shri Arvind Panagariya,
Vice Chairman, Vice-Chairman, Niti Aayog
Shri Ajay Narayan Jha, Secretary, Union Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change
We
may admire what he does, but we despise what he is."-referring to humans
who act mechanically on instructions -------Wilhelm von Humboldt, 1792
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