by Mr. Marcelo Furtado

1. POPs are toxic substances composed of organic (carbon-based) chemical compounds and mixtures. They include industrial chemicals like PCBs, pesticides like DDT and unwanted wastes like dioxin. POPs are primarily products and by-products of human industry that are of relatively recent origin.

2. POPs released to the environment can travel through air and water to regions far distant from their original source, and then, at a distant location, POPs can concentrate in biota to levels with the potential to injure human health and/or the environment. As a general rule, POPs have a number of common properties:

a) POPs are persistent in the environment. This means, POPs are substances that resist photolytic, chemical and biological degradation;

b) POPs generally are semi-volatile. Persistent substances with this property tend to enter the air, travel long distances on air currents, and then return to earth. They are also subject to global distillation (i.e. migration of POPs from warmer to colder regions);

c) POPs generally have low water solubility and high lipid (fat) solubility. Persistent substances with this property tend to bioaccumulate in fatty tissues of living organisms. In the environment, concentrations of these substances can magnify by factors of many thousands as they move up the food chain; and

d) POPs are highly toxic. This means POPs have the potential to injure human health and the environment at very low concentrations. Some POPs at extraordinarily low concentrations can attach to intercellular receptor sites in the body and trigger a cascade of potentially harmful effects.

3. Some populations of humans and some wildlife species are known to suffer significant injury from certain POPs in polar and temperate regions where the major sources of these toxic pollutants are almost certainly thousands of kilometers distant. There are fewer studies that document health injury in tropical regions caused by POPs in the environment. It stands to reason, however, that if POPs can injure human health and ecosystems thousands of kilometers from their sources, POPs can cause similar and even greater injury in near source areas. We must not forget that significant injury can occur, even when it has been poorly documented due to a lack of resources and competing research priorities.

4. For several of the North American participants in this NGO POPs' Network, interest and concern regarding POPs began in the late 1980's when scientists and researchers discovered strong evidence of injury to fish, birds and mammals in or around the Great Lakes of North America. In some of these cases, the predominant POPs sources were relatively nearby; for some, they were thousands of kilometers distant. Documented injuries were especially prevalent in high predator species and included: (a) reproductive failure and population decline; (b) abnormally functioning thyroids and other hormone system dysfunctions; (c) feminization of males and masculinization of females; (d) compromised immune systems; (e) behavioral abnormalities; (f) tumors and cancers; and (g) gross birth defects.

5. Alarmed by these findings, scientists and environmentalists investigated similar injury to humans, who, after all, can also be considered high predators. In the years that followed, good evidence was gathered associating human exposure to POPs with: (a) cancers and tumors at multiple sites; (b) neurobehavioral impairment including learning disorders, reduced performance on standard tests and changes in temperament; (c) immune system changes; (d) reproductive deficits and sex-linked disorders; (e) a shortened period of lactation in nursing mothers; and (f) diseases such as endometriosis, increased incidence of diabetes, and others.

6. In the early decades of this century, pollutants with these harmful properties were virtually non-existent in the environment. Production and generation of POPs expanded dramatically following World War II. Today, ecosystems and ordinary food supplies in most regions of the world, especially fish, meat and dairy products, tend to be contaminated by POPs. Both people and wildlife, everywhere in the world, carry body

burdens of POPs at or near levels that can -- and often do -- cause injury to human health and to entire ecosystems.

7. People are generally exposed to POPs through their food supply, although workers and residents of communities near POPs sources can also be exposed through inhalation and dermal contact. POPs exposures are often highly pronounced in peoples whose diets include large amounts of wild food and especially big fish, marine mammals and other aquatic resources. Some of the best-documented, highly exposed populations are aboriginal people living in polar regions far distant from most POPs sources, such as Inuits who live in the circumpolar region. But ordinary domesticated meat and milk products can also be significantly contaminated by POPs in tropical and temperate areas. The same POPs that can travel long distances on air currents, can also travel shorter distances and then contaminate regional grassy areas where livestock graze.

8. In people as in wildlife, injury caused by exposure to POPs is often expressed, not in the exposed adult population, but in the offspring generation. Parental body burdens of POPs can be transferred to the developing fetus and to the infant and can cause injury or deficits that may not be expressed until the infant reaches puberty or adulthood.

9. Because human generation time is quite long -- on the order of 20 to 30 years -- evidence of human injury from POPs was slow to emerge. Now, as the body of evidence documenting human injury from POPs grows rapidly, there has also emerged a growing movement of concerned individuals, organizations and others demanding that governments take action to eliminate POPs and their sources.

10. A number of POPs have already been banned or severely restricted in many countries. Responsible people in many governments are now devising plans and strategies to address the POPs problem in their own countries. Because of the trans-boundary nature of POPs, however, addressing POPs effectively will require international cooperation on a global scale.

11. Fortunately, intergovernmental institutions such as UNEP, the World Health Organization (WHO), the IFCS and others have been given a mandate by the world's governments to develop a global POPs action plan. The decision to start global intergovernmental negotiations on legally binding POPs instrument was taken by the Governing Council of UNEP in February, 1997, and endorsed by the World Health Asembly in May 1997. In late June, 1998, an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) will meet in Montreal and start to negotiate a global, legally binding convention to address this important problem.

12. Negotiators are asked to mandate action on a short list of twelve POPs, sometimes called the "dirty dozen." They are: dioxins, furans, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), DDT, chlordane, heptachlor, hexachlorobenzene, toxaphene, aldrin, dieldrin, endrin, and mirex. In addition, intergovernmental negotiators are also asked to develop criteria and a procedure for identifying additional POPs as candidates for future binding global action.

13. The UNEP decision to convene a POPs INC includes the following statements (among others) in a broad framework document that has already been agreed by governments:

a) "For the listed POP pesticides, measures should be taken to rapidly phase out remaining production and subsequent remaining use as alternatives are made available for the small number of remaining recognized uses."

b) "For the listed POP industrial chemicals there is need to phase out, over time, PCBs and HCB on a global scale and, in the transition to complete elimination of use, there is need for managing remaining use, storage and disposal."

c) "For POPs that are generated as unwanted by-products [e.g. dioxins and furans], currently available measures that can achieve a realistic and meaningful level of release reduction and/or source elimination should be pursued expeditiously, and this should be done by actions that are feasible and practical and additional measures should be explored and implemented."

d) "Realistic action should be taken to destroy obsolete stocks of the listed POPs and remediate environmental reservoirs."

e) "Socio-economic factors should be addressed in developing and implementing international action [on POPs] including the following: "Possible impacts on food production; ...possible impacts on human health (e.g., for vector control agents); ...need for capacity-building in countries and regions; ...financing concerns and opportunities; and possible trade impacts...."

14. Governments, meeting at the 1997 UNEP Governing Council, called for negotiations on POPs to finish by the year 2000. Then, following completion of negotiations, there will be further time delay before the POPs convention is ratified and enters into force. For this reason, governments, intergovernmental organizations and others have been asked to begin action on POPs now, even before legally binding mandates go into effect.

The undersigned organizations are in agreement that:

15. The goal of a global POPs convention must not be defined as the "better management of risks associated with POPs." POPs do not represent a "risk," but rather a current source of significant injury to the biosphere -- to humans, to wildlife and to entire ecosystems around the world. Nor is the better management of POPs and POPs releases an appropriate goal for a global POPs convention. POPs, by their very nature, are unmanageable substances.

16. The appropriate goal for a POPs convention is the establishment of a systematic and sustained programme of action to eliminate POPs and their sources. This is the only course of action that can, over time, eliminate the injury that POPs cause. (A POPs management regime should be pursued as interim measures under circumstances where POPs elimination requires an extended phase-out period.)

17. The world's governments, through the UNEP-authorized Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC), must establish a legally binding global Programme Of Action designed to eliminate POPs and their anthropogenic (of human origin) sources based on the following principles:

a) The POPs Programme of Action established under a global, legally binding agreement, must entail a problem solving, solutions-oriented regime, which recognizes that many countries lack the capacity to eliminate POPs and their anthropogenic sources without significant external assistance. Assistance will often be required to help countries identify and make available cost- effective alternatives to POPs and their sources, including non-chemical alternatives. A meaningful POPs elimination agreement must include significant commitments for shared responsibility including external assistance as well as technical and other aid in capacity enhancement. This regime must actively encourage the establishment of cost-effective and efficient means to achieve desired outcomes;

b) No country or region must be asked or required to take action under a POPs agreement that is substantively harmful to the health or to the well being of its people. Special consideration should be given to infectious disease control, necessary food production and other significant social or health-related matters. A proposed alternative to a POP should not be considered appropriate or acceptable if it poses a real local or regional health or environmental threat because of acute toxicity or other properties -- even if that alternative is not a POP;

c) Achieving POPs elimination is primarily a qualitative, not a quantitative undertaking. Once a substance has been listed as a POP for purposes of the legally binding instrument's program of action, the elimination goal -- which is a qualitative goal -- should become operative. A listed POP has no acceptable emission limit value; no acceptable daily intake, etc. (except as needed on an interim basis with clear sunset deadlines). The decision to list a substance as a POP should reflect a decision that the substance poses an unmanageable risk and a commitment to work toward elimination of the substance and its anthropogenic sources. Once a substance is listed as a POP, it is inappropriate to accept its continued generation and release into perpetuity. We reject the claim that emissions and releases of POPs can be effectively and safely managed and controlled forever;

d) For POPs identified as UNEP action targets -- the twelve already identified as well as others that may be added at a later date – the legally binding instrument should mandate a rapid, but orderly and responsible global program of action that, taking into account points a) to c), above, will: i) for those POPs intentionally produced, phase out and then ban all intentional production and intentional use and also end all import, export, transfer and sales; ii) for those POPS that are generated as unwanted contaminants, by-products and combustion products, identify and phase-out significant anthropogenic sources. In identifying sources, consideration should be given to industrial processes, waste disposal technologies, and anthropogenic products and materials routinely associated with the generation of POPs during their ordinary life-cycle; and iii) for obsolete POPs stocks and environmental POPs reservoirs, identify, collect and destroy the POPs by means that do not, themselves, cause hazards, generate POPs or otherwise threaten or injure health and/or the environment;

e) Reasonable criteria as well as a workable and transparent procedure should be established for identifying new POPs beyond the original twelve as elimination targets under the global programme of action. An organic chemical compound or mixture should be considered a Persistent Organic Pollutant and be subject to elimination under the terms of a global POPs instrument if it can travel through the environment from an anthropogenic source, and then, at a distant location, can concentrate in biota to levels with the potential to injure human health and/or the environment. Some properties that may be considered in assessing whether a substance or mixture meets this test include its toxicity, persistence, bioaccumulation potential and degree of volatility;

f) POPs elimination should proceed through a transition regime that is rapid, orderly and just. Unnecessary delay should not be tolerated. Phase-out transitions should proceed through a planned and orderly regime that is designed to keep economic and social costs to a minimum and to avoid disruptions and dislocations. In some cases, there will be need for transition assistance and/or other aid to specific groups of workers or communities who currently depend for their livelihood on production or use of POPs, on technologies that generate POPs or on materials that routinely generate POPs during their ordinary life cycle. When there are economic benefits as well as economic costs associated with a POPs phase-out regime, these should be equitably distributed among affected groups;

g) In addressing the special considerations addressed in points a) and b), above, and in order to assist governments, the private sector, NGOs, scientists and other interested parties in all countries in taking expedited, effective POPs-related action, it is essential that a special "clearing-house" mechanism focused on POPs be established in tandem with the global, legally binding instrument, providing interested parties with direct access to relevant sources of information, practical experience and sceintific and technical expertise and to facilitate effective scientific, technical and financial cooperation as well as capacity-building;

h) As part of the global effort to identify and eliminate POPs, governments should undertake aggressive programs of toxicity testing directed to the many chemicals whose toxic effects remain unknown, evaluating these chemicals both individually and in combination, and addressing the broad range of relevant health outcomes, including carcinogenecity and mutagenicity, endocrine activity, and developmental, immune, neurological, and reproductive toxicity. The results of toxicity testing should be evaluated based on the risks to fetuses, children and other vulnerable populations, and actions be taken consistent with the precautionary principle, which relies on the weight of evidence

approach; and

i) Complementing the need for transparent processes, including meaningful public participation, throughout the negotiation of a global, legally binding POPs instrument, the resulting regime (as well as related national, international and private sector activities) must likewise be as transparent as possible, including measures to ensure effective public/NGO participation in decision making, timely access to relevant governmental and private sector data (e.g., consistent data on sources, levels, uses and whereabouts of POPs).