|
Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) are legally binding
instruments
between two or more nation states that deal with some aspect of the environment,
including
chemical safety and chemicals management. Resulting from discussions that first took
place
at the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in 1972, the main
objectives of
these MEAs are (1) to respond to the gravity of environmental problems, and (2) to
recognize
the regional and global nature of these problems. Through the years, additional MEAs
have
been developed as awareness of the global dimension of environmental issues has
increased.
At present, there are more than 200 MEAs, several of which were entered into at the
1992
United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), held in Rio de
Janeiro,
Brazil. This "Earth Summit" produced 5 key documents on issues related to
sustainable
development: 2 "hard laws" - the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the
Framework
Convention on Climate Change, and 3 "soft laws" - the Rio Declaration, Agenda 21,
and the
Forest Principles, which were adopted by consensus.
Examples of the most directly relevant conventions to chemical
safety and chemicals
management include:
|
