Stockholm Convention

The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) is a global treaty to protect human health and the environment from toxic chemicals that are persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic. Exposure to POPs is linked to serious health effects including certain cancers, birth defects, and immune and reproductive systems damage. The Stockholm Convention, which entered into force in 2004, requires party countries (of which there are 164) to take measures to eliminate or reduce the release of 12 POPs into the environment. In May 2009, Parties added nine more substances to the treaty list for a total of 21. The inclusion of these 21 chemicals in the treaty signifies that these substances pose significant threats to human health and/or the environment such that a global elimination of these chemicals is needed.

The Substances Currently Banned or Restricted by the Convention are:

The original “Dirty Dozen”

• Industrial chemicals
  • Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) — electrical equipment
• Pesticides
  • DDT, endrin, dieldrin, aldrin, chlordane, toxaphene, heptachlor, mirex, hexachlorobenzene (HCB)
    
    
• Unintentionally produced chemicals
  • dioxins
  • furans

Newly added in 2009

• Brominated Flame Retardants
  • Components of C-Octabromodiphenyl ether (OctaBDE): Hexabromodiphenyl ether (HexaBDE) and Heptabromodiphenyl ether (HeptaBDE)
  • Components of C-Pentabromodiphenyl ether: Tetrabromodiphenyl ether (TetraBDE) and Pentabromodiphenyl ether (PentaBDE)
  • Hexabromobiphenyl (HBB)
• Substances that are no longer produced
  • Chlordecone — a pesticide
  • Pentachlorobenzene (PeCB) — a waste product of pesticide production
• Lindane and its isomers, Alpha hexachlorocyclohexane (Alpha HCH) and Beta hexachlorocyclohexane (Beta HCH) — pesticide
  
  
• Perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), its salts and Perfluorooctane sulfonyl fluoride (PFOSF) — used in electronics, fire fighting foam, textiles, cleaning products, photography, and other industrial uses

 

Implementing the Stockholm Convention

EHF staff members have been key parts of building the International POPs Elimination Network (IPEN), which is the main civil society network working on the treaty. When the Stockholm Convention came into force, EHF was instrumental in bringing IPEN to its next phase of engagement in Convention implementation activities and raising the critical funds needed to take the coalition to its next developmental plateau. EHF developed a $1 million Global Environment Facility project on behalf of IPEN to facilitate civil society engagement in preparation to implement the Convention (http://www.ipen.org/ipenweb/projects/ipep.html). The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) served as the implementing agency and EHF served as the co-executing agency with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization. EHF is one of the only NGOs ever to become an executing agency for a Global Environmental Facility (GEF) project on chemicals and health. EHF’s Joe DiGangi served as the global coordinator of the Project which delivered more than 290 NGO activities in 65 developing and transition countries. EHF continues to provide technical advice and development of positions on many Convention-related issues for IPEN participating organizations.

Evaluating New POPs

The Stockholm Convention established an initial list of 12 chemical substances that have POPs characteristics for reduction and elimination. However, during the negotiations, the international community understood that there were likely to be more POPs than the 12 substances originally covered by the treaty. Therefore, the Convention established a science-based process for evaluating candidate POPs which recognizes that lack of full scientific certainty should not prevent a candidate substance from proceeding in the evaluation or listing. This committee is called the POPs Review Committee or POPRC. EHF plays a leadership role in representing IPEN work on the POPRC including providing expert content to evaluations and participation in all Committee working groups. (See EHF authored IPEN documents IPEN Guide to New POPs; IPEN Quick Guide to POPRC Candidates.