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LESSON 3 | What is the Basel Convention and why

does it matter?
This lesson explores measures needed to set up the legal and institutional arrangements for the
implementation of the Basel Convention.

It explores the legal and regulatory requirements, the importance of inter-agency coordination, the role
of external stakeholders and the tools available to support Parties. The lesson will also give examples
of regional measures already in place. A link is made with the Plastic Waste Amendments and their
implementation at the national level. The approach taken depends on national circumstances and the
overall legal/institutional system.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Upon completion of this lesson, you will be able to:

1. identify feasible steps to enable
implementation of the Basel
Convention at the national leve;
2. explain the importance of
collaboration or coordination
mechanisms at national and regional
levels; and
Questions are posed throughout the text for you
to check own understanding. The questions are
in various formats, from open (reflection points)
to multiple choice, true/false, ranking, and/or
matching. The answers can be consulted at the
end of the journal.

3. identify tools to establish legal and

institutional frameworks.

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WHAT LEGAL and institutional arrangements does my country need to implement

the Basel Convention?

Each party has to determine whether specific

action needs to be taken to meet the obligations
arising under the Convention, and whether
adequate implementing legislation already exists
in national law, or whether, in accordance with
its domestic legal tradition, the Convention or
any of its articles are self-executing and can be
applied directly.

“Each Party shall take appropriate legal,

administrative and other measures to implement
and enforce the provisions of this Convention,
including measures to prevent and punish conduct
in contravention of the Convention.”

Basel Convention, Article 4, Paragraph 4

To implement the Basel Convention provisions, the following considerations

are key:

How to implement Which policies and Cooperation and Stakeholder

the provisions at the legal frameworks coordination among consultations.
national level? are already in place? governmental
institutions.

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Existing frameworks

Measures to implement and tailor the Basel

Convention at the national level usually need to
be embedded in a broader national waste
management policy and linked to the overall legal
framework.

To implement the Plastic Waste Amendments,

the relationship between newly enacted
legislation and the existing legal and policy
framework should be examined and, if needed,
clarified or adjusted so that legal loopholes and
contradictions are avoided. The way that Parties
implement the Convention will depend on their
legal systems and, in particular, on whether
a Party has a monist or dualist system.

National example: Ghana’s plastic strategy

Ghana has recently adopted the National Plastic existing policies and programmes within the public
Policy (2020) and an Implementation Plan, with and private sectors to address the rapidly growing
the objective of improving “cohesion to the many plastics pollution crises in Ghana”.

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The policy provides the broad vision, objectives,

programmes and actions to respond to plastic
management.

The policy sets up a plastic management

system, with the following elements: (1) a waste
management hierarchy; (2) extended producer
responsibility (EPR); (3) segregation at source; (4)
a certification scheme and database; (5) recycling
targets; (6) a plastics trading platform; (7)
government action plans; (8) mandatory industry
action plans; and (9) a resource mobilization
strategy.

The policy makes it clear that responsibility for

sustainable plastics management occurs at all
stages of the plastics lifecycle and along the
entire value chain. Therefore, all stakeholders are
held responsible for ensuring the sustainable
management of plastics.

Think about the actions taken in your country.

Is there a plastic waste management strategy?
If YES, do you think it is comprehensive and
addresses the situation? Could it be further
improved? Are any elements missing? If NOT,
is there another action taken by your country to
implement the Basel Convention Plastic Waste
Amendments? Which measures would you rely
on and what measures could enable your country
to fulfill its obligations? If you have any measures,
at which stage of the life cycle do these take
effect?

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ⓘ We will revisit the development of strategies for the environmentally sound management of
plastic waste in lesson 5.

Q1: Parties who have accepted to be bound

by the Plastic Waste Amendments have an
obligation to implement it only if they have
adopted/updated relevant legislation.

____ True or false?

Opportunities for synergies

The development or review of legal and other

measures implementing the Basel Convention
provide an opportunity to put in place or update
measures that also implement obligations under
the provisions of relevant regional multilateral
environmental agreements.

Relevant provisions of regional waste

management treaties concluded pursuant to
Article 11 of the Basel Convention, such as the
Bamako Convention and the Waigani Convention
(more in lesson 6), can be integrated within
national legislation or other measures that
implement the Basel Convention.

Other international treaties that could be taken

into account include:

Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed

Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous
Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade
and the Stockholm Convention on Persistent
Organic Pollutants.

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1. THE ROTTERDAM CONVENTION The Stockholm Convention is a global treaty

that aims to protect human health and the
The Rotterdam Convention was adopted
environment from the harmful impacts of
on 10 September 1998 by a Conference of
POPs. POPs possess a particular combination
Plenipotentiaries in Rotterdam, the Netherlands
of physical and chemical properties such that,
and entered into force on 24 February 2004. The
once released into the environment, they:
objectives of the Convention are to promote
shared responsibility and cooperative efforts ▪ remain intact for exceptionally long
among Parties in the international trade of periods of time (many years);
certain hazardous chemicals in order to: ▪ become widely distributed throughout
the environment as a result of natural
▪ protect human health and the environment
processes involving soil, water and, most
from potential harm;
notably, air;
▪ contribute to the environmentally sound
▪ accumulate in living organisms, including
use of these chemicals;
humans, and are found at higher
▪ facilitate information exchange on the
concentrations at higher levels in the food
characteristics of these chemicals;
chain; and
▪ disseminate information about export and
▪ are toxic to both humans and wildlife.
import of plastics among Parties;
The Convention requires its Parties to take
▪ create legally binding obligations for
measures to eliminate or reduce the release of
the implementation of a Prior Informed
POPs into the environment.
Consent (PIC) procedure.
Plastic additives regulated by the Stockholm
Various chemicals listed as subject to the
Convention include brominated flame retardants,
Rotterdam Convention PIC procedure are plastic
such as hexabromobiphenyl, commercial
additives, for example, octaBDE, HBCD and
penta-, octa- and decabromodiphenyl ether,
PFOS. The list of chemicals contained in Annex
hexabromocyclododecane; fluorinated
III of the Convention and subject to the PIC can
substances, such as perfluorooctane sulfonic
be accessed here.
acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA);
and chlorinated substances, such as short-
2. THE STOCKHOLM CONVENTION chain chlorinated paraffins and polychlorinated
naphthalenes.
The Stockholm Convention on Persistent
Organic Pollutants (POPs) was adopted by the
Conference of Plenipotentiaries on 22 May All POPs listed in the Stockholm Convention can
2001 in Stockholm, Sweden and entered into be consulted here.
force on 17 May 2004.

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The implementation of these conventions can be
promoted through the development of legislation
based on a life-cycle approach to chemicals
management (discussed in more detail in the
next lesson in Module 2). This approach could
enlarge the scope of the legislation and may be
challenging for Parties that have been struggling
to adopt implementing legislation.
The products life-cycle * Annex IV A lists all
operations which do not lead to the possibility of
resource recovery, recycling, reclamation, direct re-
use or alternative uses
Alternatively, Parties may look for opportunities
to create more targeted synergies when
implementing different multilateral environmental
agreements (MEAs), for example, at the
institutional level.
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Q2: When implementing national plastic
policies, Parties could also look at other
existing international conventions, such
as the Stockholm Convention and the
Rotterdam Convention, address potential
synergies. Among others, what do these two
conventions cover? Match each convention
with one of the scopes below:
1. Requires Parties to take measures to
eliminate or reduce, among others,
brominated flame retardants, such as
hexabromodiphenyl.
2. Creates legally binding obligations
for the implementation of a Prior
Informed Consent (PIC) procedure
for certain hazardous chemicals and
pesticides in international trade.
A. The Rotterdam Convention
B. The Stockholm Convention

In June 2022, the United Nations Environment
A s s e m b l y ( U N E A ) d e c i d e d t h at a n
intergovernmental negotiating committee (INC)
was to “develop an international legally binding
instrument on plastic pollution, including in the
marine environment”. The first session of the INC
was held on 28 November – 02 December 2022,
in Uruguay.
UNEA also welcomed efforts made, among
others, by the Basel Convention. Moreover,
Bernardo Roca-Rey, Peru; INC Chair Gustavo Meza-Cuadra, Peru; Jyoti Mathur-Filipp, Executive Secretary, INC
Secretariat; and Yesica Fonseca, Peru (Photo by IISD/ENB)
In their decisions BC-15/25, RC-10/14 and SC-
10/21, the BRS COPs requested the Secretariat,
among other things, “to continue to work closely
with other international organizations, within
their mandates, on activities related to marine
plastic litter and microplastics”. In the same
decisions, the COPs requested the Executive
Secretary to participate in the INC, and to closely
cooperate and coordinate with the Executive
Director of the UNEP in the context of the
mandate of the INC.
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UNEA reaffirmed “the importance of
cooperation, coordination and complementarity
among relevant regional and international
conventions and instruments (…) to prevent
plastic pollution (…), including, among others,
the Basel Convention, the Rotterdam Convention
and the Stockholm Convention”.
▪ Full text of Resolution 5/14: “End plastic
pollution: Towards an internationally
legally binding instrument”.
Moreover, the BRS COPs invited Parties
participating in the INC to ensure that:
▪ the international legally binding
instrument is fully coherent with and
complementary to the BRS conventions,
▪ it avoids the duplication of actions set
out in the relevant provisions of those
conventions,
▪ it promotes cooperation and coordination
with those conventions, and
▪ the expertise of the Secretariat and the
Parties and the experience built up in
implementing the conventions is fully
shared to help the INC in its deliberations.
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National and regional coordination

Several ministries may have competencies
affecting the regulation of generation,
management and transboundary movement of
plastic and related waste. These could include the
ministries of environment, public health, industry
and commerce, agriculture and justice, whose
roles, mandates and responsibilities should also
be considered in the institutional framework.
Other relevant entities include sub-national
authorities.

The involvement of relevant ministries and sub- measures to the constitution of inter-agency
national authorities in the drafting process can drafting groups. It is often useful to designate
take many forms, from providing opportunities a lead agency for the process.
to comment on the draft texts of proposed

Stakeholders

Consulting interested stakeholders on draft ▪ Plastic production industry

legislation or other measures can improve the ▪ Plastic packaging industry
quality of the legislation and increase their
▪ Retailers
commitment, with positive effects on compliance
▪ Transport companies, collectors and
rates. In some jurisdictions there is an obligation
sorters (formal and informal)
to hold consultations. In the case of plastic
waste, stakeholders to involve in the legislative ▪ Recovery operators / recyclers
drafting process could include the following ▪ Landfill operators
representatives: ▪ Civil society

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Common ways of requesting input from interested stakeholders include to publishing the draft
legislation with a call for comments and to organizing consultative meetings.

WHAT COULD indicate an effective legal framework?

According to the Manual on Compliance with and Enforcement of Multilateral Environmental

Agreements, laws and regulations should be:

Clearly stated with well- Technically, economically Comprehensive with

defined objectives,
giving fair notice to the
appropriate community of
requirements and relevant
sanctions, and enabling
effective implementation of
environmental agreements.
and socially feasible to appropriate and proportionate
implement, monitor and penalties for environmental
enforce effectively and provide law violations.
standards that are objectively
quantifiable to ensure
consistency, transparency and
fairness in enforcement.

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Q3: Which of the following entities, among Q5: Which of the following principles should
others, should be engaged in national form the basis of the drafting process of laws
consultations in addressing the transboundary and regulations? The laws and regulations
movement of plastic waste and related waste should be:
generation and management?
□ Clearly stated with well-defined objectives,
□ Ministry of environment giving fair notice to the appropriate community
□ Ministry of public health of requirements and relevant sanctions,
and enabling effective implementation of
□ Ministry of industry and commerce
environmental agreements.
□ Ministry of agriculture
□ Technically, economically and socially
□ Sub-national authorities
feasible to implement, monitor and enforce
□ Ministry of finance effectively and provide standards that are
□ Ministry of internal affairs objectively quantifiable to ensure consistency,
□ Ministry of justice transparency and fairness in enforcement.
□ Comprehensive with appropriate and
proportionate penalties for environmental
Q4: Which of the following stakeholders
law violations.
might be consulted by a national legislative
drafting group when drafting plastics
management related legislation?

□ Recovery operators
□ Landfill operators
□ Civil society
□ Plastic production industry
□ Plastic packaging industry
□ Retailers
□ Transport companies, collector and sorters

CONGRATULATIONS! YOU have reached the end of lesson 3 and the end of Module 1.

You can move on to Module 2, which looks at the answer two main questions: How can we prevent
prevention, minimization and environmentally and minimize the generation of plastic waste?
sound management of plastic waste. The module and How can we manage plastic waste in an
is structured around two lessons and tries to environmentally sound manner?

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Answers:

Q1: False Q4: all listed stakeholders

Q2: 1-B, 2-A Q5: all listed principles

Q3: all listed entities

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