While the recently ratified Basel Convention aims to regulate international toxic waste movements across the globe, reservations from the EC and OECD (amongst others) seem set to undermine its implementation. In light of recent developments, Francesca Pestellini discusses the frameworks of control and the fundamental issue of waste movement and the Single Internal Market: an issue with signif'icant potential for environmental change across Europe and the world The International Context The prompt reaction of African States against the Base1 Convention led to the adoption of the Bamako Convention 'on the Ban of the Import into Africa and the Control of Transboundary Movement and Management of Hazardous Waste within Africa'. This convention was signed on the 31st of January 1991 by the Member States of the Organisation for African Unity and is not yet in force. It prohibits the imports of all hazardous and nuclear waste into the African Continent. A similar prohibition is included in article 39 of the Forth Lome Convention. which currently binds the EC and 69 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACT) States.
It dictates that contracting parties make every effort to ensure that international movements of hazardous and radioactive waste are controlled, and stresses the importance of international cooperation in t)ris area.