The regulation of transfrontier movements of hazardous waste and their disposal under the 1989 Basel Convention and Community law

Abstract

In the last twenty years, public opinion and governments have become increasingly concerned with the escalating risks to human health and the environment entailed by several industrial activities connected with waste generation and management. The disastrous discharge of toxic and dangerous waste into the Love Canal in the United States is only one of the numerous examples which provoked cancer and genetic deformations and forced the inhabitants to evacuate as "environmental refugees". This and other cases revealed that when hazardous waste was shipped, its fate was often uncertain and there was little or no control over its destination by the country of origin or by the recipient. In the late seventies, after the disappearance of toxic barrels from the Seveso accident, a great deal of public and government concern in industrialized countries focused on the issue of the management and disposal of toxic and dangerous waste, and in particular, on the harmful consequences - including those of an accidental nature -, that arise from the uncontrolled transport of such waste from the site of generation to its final destination.