Pe$ticide$ in the news
PROFITS BEFORE PEOPLE.... AGAIN!
Governments meeting in Rome this week rejected a pesticide Code aimed at renewing the fight against pesticide hazards in developing countries.
Subject: Pe$ticide$ in the news......................
Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2001 14:55:23 -0500
From: Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization: Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)
Pesticide Code tripped by TRIPS
Governments meeting in Rome this week rejected a pesticide Code aimed at renewing the fight against pesticide hazards in developing countries. While deaths and illness from pesticides remain at an all-time high, the urgency of taking action has been delayed over the interpretation of government obligations to protect company packages of information on the health, environment and efficacy impacts of their products from rivals an issue already covered by the so-called Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (Trips) agreement in the World Trade Organisation.
Over the last two years, more than 50 deaths have been recorded from cotton pesticides in Benin, 16 deaths from a hazardous mixture of three pesticides used in groundnut production in Senegal, and in Peru 24 children died after a pesticide was accidentally introduced into food distributed in a village school. Thousands more deaths go unrecorded, or the pesticides responsible are not traced. Ill-health is regularly misdiagnosed as flu, migraine, or even strokes, and easy access to these hazardous products in poor countries leads to millions of suicide attempts tragically generally leading to death because of the irreversible effects and lack of available antidotes.
Although the International Code of Conduct on the Distribution and Use of Pesticides* has been in place since it was first negotiated in the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations in 1985, the revised version made sweeping changes, drawing strongly on the experience of 15 years of trying to implement the Code. The new Code addressed many of the weaknesses in the existing version which says nothing of obsolete stocks of pesticides, for example, and does not recognise innovative work with farmers through Integrated Pest Management or organic agriculture. The revision recommends that the most acutely toxic pesticides should not be used in developing countries.
With two new Conventions covering pesticides, and renewed efforts to dispose of the enormous quantities of hazardous obsolete stocks of pesticides leaking into the environment over 50,000 tonnes in Africa alone the new Code takes a 'cradle to grave' approach, guiding developing countries to implement tried and accepted standards, and establishing a vital link between disposal and prevention.
The fiasco followed an objection from Argentina supported by all Latin America countries to the guidance on protection of a company's pesticide registration data package, in spite of wording that reflects the status quo in most countries, and which recognises the over-riding role of national legislation. The objection may have been influenced by Argentina's generic pesticide industry, threatened with a WTO dispute for using data packages from research-based agrochemical companies to register its own products.
The Code text had been through many government consultations and government-delegated expert-committee recommendations, and the eleventh hour rejection by Latin American countries took other governments by surprise. The FAO was requested to set up new meetings to find an acceptable solution by the date of its Council meeting in November 2002, and Authorised the Council to adopt the agreed version Code.
As a compromise, this may be a way ahead. But in the meantime the momentum to drive forward a new agreement has been lost.
Notes: 1. Governments were meeting at the 31st Biennial Conference of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO). 2. The International Code of Conduct on the Distribution and Use of Pesticides was negotiated by governments through the FAO Biennial Conference in 1985, and amended in 1989. It is supported by the pesticide industry, forming part of the constitution of the industry association, CropLife International, which has indicated it will adopt the revised version, but insists on the inclusion of data protection recognition. 3. Article 37.3 of the Trips Agreement covers pesticide registration.
Contact: Barbara Dinham Pesticide Action Network UK Telephone (office) +44 (0)20 7274 8895 Telephone (mobile) 07950 414244 Email: barbaradinham@pan-uk.org
See also PAN Germany's new publication:
The Stockholm Convention (POPs Convention) An international, legally binding regulation for the global elimination of extremely dangerous pollutants
Toxic and persistent organic pollutants (POPs) jeopardise the well-being of all life on earth. In May 2001 the international, legally binding regulation for the global elimination of POPs, the “Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants“, was adopted by 127 governments in Stockholm.
It is now important to promote the rapid ratification of the Convention in the individual countries and to insist on its implementation. Governments, the chemical industry, environmental and consumers’ organisations have to act jointly so that future generations may live without these extremely dangerous persistent pollutants.
In this publication, PAN Germany documents the contents of the Convention and shows how to push its implementation. Have a look at the attached pdf-file if you are interested in more information on this publication.
The publication can be ordered as printed version or downloaded as pdf-file from our website ( www.pan-germany.org ) under downloads. The printed version is also available in German and will be published in Russian soon.
Carina Weber, PAN Germany, Hamburg, 2001, ISBN 3-9806254-4-3. (4 EURO (7,82 DM), 17 pages, DIN A4)
Every single day we hear about the dangers of these "registered" POISONS and yet "our" government has STILL not allowed the use of any safe and far more effective alternatives. WHY? Steve
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