GENEVA, May 9, 2025 — At the 2025 session of the Basel, Rotterdam, and Stockholm Conventions (BRS), UN Member States made progress on toxics reform, refusing proposals that would have weakened the conventions. Still, due to continued efforts to stymie progress, they ultimately fell short of truly ambitious action needed to protect human health and the environment from hazardous substances.
“Before we arrived at the COPs, we already knew that some countries were attempting to introduce proposals that would set dangerous precedents for weakening the Conventions,” said Giulia Carlini, Manager of Environmental Health and Senior Attorney at Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL). “It was encouraging to see Parties show leadership and take a stand for long-term protections over vested interests. Over the last two weeks, we saw countries take steps that were years, and in one case, a decade, in the making. Such achievements show that multilateralism can and does continue to work.”
Together, the triple Conference of the Parties (COP) advances global rules and actions related to hazardous waste trade, informed decisions in hazardous chemicals and pesticides trade, and the prohibition of some of the worst chemicals in the world — persistent organic pollutants (POPs).
Key decisions made during the COPs include:
- Stockholm Convention
- A global ban was adopted on three new POPs: chlorpyrifos, a pesticide known to harm children’s brain development; long-chain perfluorocarboxylic aids (LC-PFCAs), a subgroup of the so-called “forever chemicals” PFAS; and medium-chain chlorinated paraffins (MCPPs), used in plastics such as PVC.
- The addition of a dangerous, newly added exemption for UV-328 — a UV stabilizer listed as a globally banned POP in 2023 — allowing its use in aircraft was a small textual change that risked potentially far-reaching implications.
- Basel Convention
- The adoption of a strategic framework for the implementation of the Convention for 2025–2031 was a key outcome. Other decisions included much-needed technical guidelines for Parties on the environmentally sound management of certain types of waste, future work on textile waste, and measures to support the implementation of plastic waste trade rules.
- Parties agreed to initiate cooperation between the Convention and regional counterparts that also address hazardous waste, including the Bamako Convention in Africa and the Waigani Convention in the South Pacific.
- Rotterdam Convention
- The COP agreed to include two new pesticides — fenthion and carbosulfan — in the Convention’s Prior Informed Consent system, after being on the agenda for ten and seven years, respectively.
“For all of the COPs’ progress, we continued to see attempts from certain Parties to whittle down the treaties’ effectiveness,” added David Azoulay, CIEL’s Environmental Health program director. “Interventions showed a brazen, continued willingness to deny scientific findings and circumvent scientific review on requests for exemptions. Continued inaction means that some Parties will continue to ban chemicals, including pesticides, within their own borders, while the market will expand in others. Such efforts only serve to poison communities and harm workers while lining the pocketbooks of the chemical lobby.”
The BRS COPs have been seen as an early indicator of dynamics that may be on display in the upcoming resumed fifth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) to advance a Global Plastics Treaty. Andres del Castillo, CIEL Senior Attorney, offered, “Those watching two plus years of negotiating the Plastics Treaty would not be surprised to see the similar dynamics at play at BRS — the same bullies are at work. However, BRS showed that the majority of Parties were willing to remain united behind the need to control chemicals of concern and the protection of human health, human rights, and the environment. Countries must continue to show the same courage in Geneva later this year, otherwise we risk a failure.”
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