The Basel Convention (verbose: Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal) is an international treaty  to reduce the movements of hazardous waste between nations.  It focuses particularly on reducing movement of hazardous waste from developed countries to less developed countries (LCDs) that lack the administrative, monitoring and other capacities to safely manage these wastes.  The treaty does not, however, address radioactive waste.  In addition to regulating the transfer of wastes, the Convention is also intended to minimize the amount and toxicity of wastes generated, to ensure wastes are managed as closely as possible to the source of generation, and to assist LDCs (e.g., with technical assistance) in environmentally sound management of the hazardous and other wastes they generate.¹

Better management of wastes can help achieve climate change and energy production objectives.

Credit:Basel Action Network, ban.org (request needed)

The Convention has been linked to climate change mitigation through the recognition that enhancing practices for the environmentally sound management of hazardous and other wastes can help achievement objectives relating to climate change and energy production and use.  In turn, there is the potential for the Clean Development Mechanism established under the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), as well as other mechanisms, to contribute new and additional financial resources to support the environmentally sound management of wastes.²

The Convention was opened for signature on March 22, 1989, and entered into force on May 5, 1992. A list of parties to the Convention, and their ratification status, can be found on the Basel Secretariat's web page. Of the 170 parties to the Convention, Afghanistan, Haiti, and the United States have signed the Convention but have not yet ratified it.³