International Efforts to Control the Transportation of Hazardous Waste around the World
Della Mulinde

In the 1980s, a tremendous amount of hazardous waste dumping occurred in the developing world. Scholars began to place attention on a phenomenon that had been pushed under the rug. Hazardous wastes are wastes that have the potential to harm humans or the environment, in either the short or long term. Examples of hazardous waste include used batteries (such as car and mobile phone batteries), waste oil, and waste products (such as heavy metals derived from manufacturing processes). These kinds of wastes cannot be placed in landfills because they contaminate the soil and surrounding waterways.

TIME LINE: Parts of the international community have sought reform for this problem:
European Community
-1975 Council directive on general principles of waste disposal 1978 Directive on toxic and dangerous waste
-1984 Council directive in the supervision and control within the European community of the transfer shipments of hazardous wastes
-1993 Council regulation on the supervision and control of shipments and waste within, into, and out of the EC
Directives are laws of the EU that must be adhered to by all member states of the union. Non-compliance can result in severe penalties

Organization of African States
- 1991 Bamako convention on the import into Africa of hazardous waste and control of transboundary movement and management
- Required all the countries to prohibit all imports of hazardous waste into African nations.

The Convention on Lome IV
During the Lome negotiations in 1989, the European community and sixty-eight countries from Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific region
Agreed to completely ban waste exports from EC to ACP countries.

Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
- 1984 decision and recommendation of the council in transfrontier movements of hazardous waste- 1986 Council decision – recommendation on exports of hazardous waste from the OECD are

Rotterdam Convention
In 1998, the convention stated that prior informed consent on certain hazardous chemicals and pesticides was needed before international trade was permitted.

The Basel Convention--The treaty that became the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal was first proposed in 1987 as a rapid global response to a late 1980s outbreak of international waste dumping that had stung the world and threatened to become epidemic. In 1994, a unique coalition of developing countries, environmental groups and European countries succeeded in achieving within that Convention, the basel ban -- a decision to end the most abusive forms of hazardous waste trade.

Biblography/ Webliography

The African Union date. (n.d) Retrieved 03/26/04. http://www.africa-union.org
The Basel Action Network. (n.d.) Retrieved 03/26/04. http://www.ban.org
The European Union online (n.d) retrieved 93/26/04. http://europa.eu.int/index_en.ht
Ives, Jane H. (1985). The export of Hazardous transnational corporations and envriomental controls issues. Routledge & Kegan Paul Inc. London.