Dangerous Chemicals in International Perspective: The Developing United Nations Role
The impact of toxic chemicals and waste on the environment and human life is of worldwide concern. The United Nations has been working for over a decade on development of a legal system to protect against toxic effects possible from the vast array of chemicals that now are manufactured and used in the world, and from the abandonment of toxic wastes. For several years, the U.N. quietly has been developing an international information and notification system. Every country in any stage of development is concerned to prevent another Bhopal. This recent tragedy has provided a dramatic push toward some kind of orderly preventive process to which all nations can agree. Because the United Nations is not a regulatory body, but must operate on the basis of consensus rules and guidelines, the legal system it is developing takes the form of voluntary contributions of information and mutual agreement to protective guidelines. There has been important progress, but in recent months, the United States has emerged as an obstacle.
The concern of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) with the possible worldwide impact of chemicals and toxic wastes dates back to the Action Plan for the Human Environment of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, held at Stockholm from June 5-16, 1972 (1972 Stockholm Conference). In that plan, Recommendation 21 on international programs for integrated pest control and reduction of the harmful effects of agro-chemicals, and Recommendation 74 on an international registry of data on chemicals in the environment, form the structure for the developing legal system.1 Two major programs have been undertaken, the creation of an international registry of dangerous chemicals to make available information concerning chemicals and wastes to all who need it, and a working group of experts who are developing guidelines concerning the movement of dangerous chemicals in the international trade.