The Ban Amendment

In one line

Adopted in 1995 as new article 4A and a new Annex VII, it forbids the rich to export hazardous waste to everyone else, it entered into force on 5 December 2019 for the parties that accepted it, and India is not one of them.

What it says

The Conference of the Parties, by Decision III/1 at its third meeting in September 1995, decided to amend the Convention by inserting a new preambular paragraph, a new Article 4A and a new Annex VII.

The new preambular paragraph recognises that transboundary movements of hazardous wastes, especially to developing countries, have a high risk of not constituting an environmentally sound management of hazardous wastes as required by the Convention.

Article 4A(1). Each party listed in Annex VII shall prohibit all transboundary movements of hazardous wastes which are destined for operations according to Annex IV A, to States not listed in Annex VII.

Article 4A(2). Each party listed in Annex VII shall phase out by 31 December 1997, and prohibit as of that date, all transboundary movements of hazardous wastes under article 1(1)(a) which are destined for operations according to Annex IV B to States not listed in Annex VII. Such movement is not prohibited unless the wastes in question are characterised as hazardous under the Convention.

Annex VII is the list: parties and other States which are members of the OECD, the European Community, and Liechtenstein.

Reading the two paragraphs properly

The distinction between the two paragraphs is the distinction between Annex IV A and Annex IV B, and getting it right is the difference between a good answer and a vague one.

• Annex IV A lists disposal operations which do not lead to the possibility of resource recovery, recycling, reclamation, direct reuse or alternative uses: deposit into or onto land, landfarming, deep injection, surface impoundment, specially engineered landfill, release into a water body or a sea including seabed insertion, biological and physico-chemical treatment, incineration on land or at sea, permanent storage, blending prior to any of these.
• Annex IV B lists operations which may lead to resource recovery, recycling, reclamation, direct reuse or alternative uses: use as a fuel other than direct incineration, solvent reclamation, recycling of organic substances and of metals, regeneration of acids or bases, recovery of components used for pollution abatement or from catalysts, oil re-refining, land treatment benefiting agriculture, and exchange or accumulation of wastes for any of these.

So paragraph 1 banned exports for disposal immediately, and paragraph 2 banned exports for recovery and recycling from the end of 1997. The second was far more controversial, because a great deal of legitimate metal recovery is done in States outside Annex VII, and the ban makes no exception for a facility that is demonstrably sound.