Minamata Convention on Mercury

The Minamata Convention on Mercury is an international treaty designed to protect

human health and the environment from anthropogenic emissions and releases
of mercury and mercury compounds.

This Convention was a result of three years of meeting and negotiating, after which the text
of the Convention was approved by delegates representing close to 140 countries on 19
January 2013 in Geneva and adopted and signed later that year on 10 October 2013 at a
Diplomatic Conference held in Kumamoto, Japan.

It is expected that over the next few decades, this international agreement will enhance the
reduction of mercury pollution from the targeted activities responsible for the major release
of mercury to the immediate environment.

Why is it called Minamata?

The Convention is named after the Japanese city Minamata. This naming is of symbolic
importance as the city went through a devastating incident of mercury poisoning.

Background on Mercury
Mercury is a naturally occurring element. It can be released to the environment from natural
sources – such as weathering of mercury-containing rocks, forest fires, volcanic eruptions
or geothermal activities – but also from human activities.
An estimated 5500-8900 tons of mercury is currently emitted and re-emitted each year to
the atmosphere, with much of the re-emitted mercury considered to be related to human
activity, as are the direct releases.
Due to its unique properties, mercury has been used in various products and processes for
hundreds of years. Currently, it is mostly utilised in industrial processes that produce
chlorine (mercury chlor-alkali plants) or vinyl chloride monomer for polyvinyl chloride (PVC)
production, and polyurethane elastomers.
It is extensively used to extract gold from ore in artisanal and small-scale gold mining. It is
contained in products such as electrical switches (including thermostats), relays, measuring
and control equipment, energy-efficient fluorescent light bulbs, batteries and dental
amalgam. It is also used in laboratories, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, including in vaccines
as a preservative, paints, and jewellery.
Mercury is also released unintentionally from some industrial processes, such as coal-fired
power and heat generation, cement production, mining and other metallurgic activities such
as non-ferrous metals production, as well as from incineration of many types of waste.

History of the convention

Mercury and mercury compounds have long been known to be toxic to human health and
the environment. Large-scale public health crises due to mercury poisoning, such
as Minamata disease and Niigata Minamata disease, drew attention to the issue. In 1972,
delegates to the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment witnessed Japanese
junior high school student Shinobu Sakamoto, disabled as the result of methylmercury
poisoning in utero. The United Nations Environment Programme (UN Environment,
previously UNEP) was established shortly thereafter.

For more than a decade, UN Environment has been actively engaged in bringing the
science of mercury poisoning to policy implementation. In 2001, the Executive Director of
UN Environment was invited by its Governing Council to undertake a global assessment of
mercury and its compounds, including the chemistry and health effects, sources, long-range
transport, as well as prevention and control technologies relating to mercury.

In 2003, the Governing Council considered this assessment and found that there was
sufficient evidence of significant global adverse impacts from mercury and its compounds to
warrant further international action to reduce the risks to human health and the environment
from their release to the environment. Governments were urged to adopt goals for the
reduction of mercury emissions and releases and UN Environment initiated technical
assistance and capacity-building activities to meet these goals.

A mercury programme to address the concerns posed by mercury was established and
further strengthened by governments in 2005 and 2007 with the UNEP Global Mercury
Partnership. In 2007, the Governing Council concluded that the options of enhanced
voluntary measures and new or existing international legal instruments should be reviewed
and assessed in order to make progress in addressing the mercury issue. In February 2009,
the Governing Council of UNEP decided to develop a global legally binding instrument on
mercury.
An intergovernmental negotiating committee (INC) was promptly established, through which
countries negotiated and developed the text of the convention. Other stakeholders,
including intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations also participated in the
process and contributed through sharing of views, experience and technical expertise.[6] The
Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee was chaired by Fernando Lugris of Uruguay and
supported by the Chemicals and Health Branch of UN Environment's Economy Division.

The Convention entered into force 90 days after it had been ratified (or accepted, approved
or acceded to) by 50 States or regional economic integration organizations. Since the fifty-
ratification milestone was met as of 24 June 2017, the first meeting of the Conference of the
Parties to the Minamata Convention (COP1) took place from 24 to 29 September 2017 in
Geneva. Fernando Lugris, the Uruguayan chair delegate, proclaimed, "Today in the early
hours of 19 January 2013 we have closed a chapter on a journey that has taken four years
of often intense but ultimately successful negotiations and opened a new chapter towards a
sustainable future. This has been done in the name of vulnerable populations everywhere
and represents an opportunity for a healthier and more sustainable century for all peoples.
Effect of Mercury

Minamata disease (Japanese: 水俣病 Hepburn: Minamata-byō), sometimes referred to as Chisso-

Minamata disease (チッソ水俣病Chisso-Minamata-byō), is a neurological syndrome caused by
severe mercury poisoning. Symptoms include ataxia, numbness in the hands and feet,
general muscle weakness, loss of peripheral vision, and damage to hearing and speech. In extreme
cases, insanity, paralysis, coma, and death follow within weeks of the onset of symptoms.
A congenital form of the disease can also affect fetuses in the womb.
Minamata disease was first discovered in Minamata city in Kumamoto prefecture, Japan, in 1956. It
was caused by the release of methylmercury in the industrial wastewater from the Chisso
Corporation's chemical factory, which continued from 1932 to 1968. This
highly toxic chemical bioaccumulated in shellfish and fish in Minamata Bay and the Shiranui Sea,
which, when eaten by the local populace, resulted in mercury poisoning. While cat, dog, pig, and
human deaths continued for 36 years, the government and company did little to prevent the
pollution. The animal effects were severe enough in cats that they came to be named as having
"dancing cat fever"
As of March 2001, 2,265 victims had been officially recognised as having Minamata disease (1,784
of whom had died)[2] and over 10,000 had received financial compensation from Chisso.[3] By 2004,
Chisso Corporation had paid $86 million in compensation, and in the same year was ordered to
clean up its contamination.[4] On March 29, 2010, a settlement was reached to compensate as-yet
uncertified victims.
A second outbreak of Minamata disease occurred in Niigata Prefecture in 1965. The original
Minamata disease and Niigata Minamata disease are considered two of the four big pollution
diseases of Japan.

Tomoko Uemura in Her Bath is a photograph taken by American photojournalist W.

Eugene Smith in 1971. Many commentators regard Tomoko as Smith's greatest work. The
black-and-white photo depicts a mother cradling her severely deformed, naked daughter in
a traditional Japanese bathroom. The mother, Ryoko Uemura, agreed to deliberately pose
the startlingly intimate photograph with Smith to illustrate the terrible effects of Minamata
disease (a type of mercury poisoning) on the body and mind of her daughter Tomoko.
Upon publication the photo became world famous, significantly raising the international
profile of Minamata disease and the struggle of the victims for recognition
and compensation. At the wishes of Tomoko Uemura's family, the photograph was
withdrawn from further publication in 1997, 20 years after Tomoko's death.

Objective of the Convention

The objective of the Minamata Convention is to protect the human health and the
environment from anthropogenic emissions and releases of mercury and mercury
compounds. It contains, in support of this objective, provisions that relate to the entire life
cycle of mercury, including controls and reductions across a range of products, processes
and industries where mercury is used, released or emitted. The treaty also addresses the
direct mining of mercury, its export and import, its safe storage and its disposal once as
waste. Pinpointing populations at risk, boosting medical care and better training of health-
care professionals in identifying and treating mercury-related effects will also result from
implementing the Convention.
The Minamata Convention provides controls over a myriad of products containing mercury,
the manufacture, import and export of which will be altogether prohibited by 2020, except
where countries have requested an exemption for an initial 5-year period. These products
include certain types of batteries, of lamps such as compact fluorescent lamps, of and
relays, soaps and cosmetics, thermometers, and blood pressure devices. Dental fillings
which use mercury amalgam are also regulated under the Convention, and their use must
be phased down through a number of measures.[22]