1. International Transfer of Restricted or Prohibited Substances

Abstract

The year saw developments with regard to new ratification of the Basel Convention and number of important decisions adopted in the thirteenth Conference of the Parties (COP-13). Two new parties—Angola and Sierra Leone—joined the Basel Convention in 2017, so its number of parties is now 186. No new parties ratified the Basel Protocol on Liability and Compensation for Damage Resulting from Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal and its numbers remain the same at eleven, which means that it is still far short of the twenty required to bring the protocol into force. In the case of the 1995 Amendment to the Basel Convention, five States—Algeria, Guinea, Lebanon, Malawi, and Maldives—became parties to it in 2017 and its number is now ninety-three, which is still less than the three-quarters of the parties of the amendment needed to bring it into force (see Status of Ratifications <http://www.basel.int/Countries/StatusofRatifications/tabid/1341/Default.aspx>). With regard to the PIC Convention, four parties—Iraq, Malta, Sierra Leone, and Turkey—joined in 2017 and the number of parties is now 160. Malta also ratified the Stockholm Convention, bringing its number of parties to 182.