Basel Convention

The Basel Convention is an international treaty that controls the movement of hazardous wastes across national borders, and was adopted in Basel, Switzerland. It was drawn up after scandals in the 1980s in which toxic waste from industrial countries was dumped in poorer countries, in places such as Koko in Nigeria. The convention requires states to reduce the production of hazardous waste, to dispose of it as close as possible to its source, and to obtain prior consent before it is exported. It came into force in 1992, and a later amendment banned exports of such waste from richer countries to developing ones. The United States signed but has never ratified it, and in 2019 plastic waste was added to its scope.

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