Summary
On Tuesday, 31 May 2016, the OEWG opened its second day of work in plenary. After a progress report by the co-chairs of the Technical Matters and Strategic Matters Contact Groups, the Technical Matters Group met in parallel to morning plenary. After lunch the rest of the day was spent in contact groups.
The morning plenary discussed: consultation with the Committee for Administering the Mechanism for Promoting Implementation and Compliance of the Convention (ICC); guidance on the implementation of Convention provisions dealing with the consequences of illegal traffic; cooperation with the World Customs Organization (WCO) on the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System; a report on financial matters; the draft guidance manual on the sea-land interface, based on a revised International Maritime Organization (IMO) manual on port reception facilities; and the draft concept note by Uruguay and Mauritius for a new Basel Convention Partnership on Household Wastes.
The morning meeting of the Technical Matters Contact Group focused discussion on wastes with low content of persistent organic pollutants (POPs), the draft technical guidelines (TGs) on POPs wastes, and drafting a decision on the POPs waste TGs.
In the afternoon, the Legal Matters Contact Group discussed the glossary of terms and definitions and the possible way forward for a review of updating Convention Annexes I, III, IV and parts of IX. The Strategic Matters Contact Group discussed a draft decision text on the Cartagena Declaration on the Prevention, Minimization and Recovery of Hazardous Wastes and Other Wastes. On guidelines for environmentally sound management (ESM), the group provided recommendations to the Secretariat for a user survey on the relevance and utility of existing Basel Convention guidance documents. In the evening, the group completed discussion of a draft decision on the Partnership for Action on Computing Equipment (PACE).
IISD Reporting Services, through its ENB Meeting Coverage, has provided daily web updates and a summary and analysis report from the Open-ended Working Group of the Basel Convention (OEWG10). Our summary and analysis report is available in HTML and PDF
Shruti Rai Bhardwaj, India
Technical Matters Contact Group Co-Chair Magda Gosk (Poland) reports to plenary on Monday’s group discussions.
Zhang Jialing, China
Strategic Matters Contact Group Co-Chair Angela Patricia Rivera Galvis (Colombia) reports to plenary on Monday’s group deliberations.
Petronella Shoko, Zimbabwe
L-R: Joost Meijer and Konrad Paulsen, Chile