Nobuteru Ishihara, Minister
of Environment, Japan, Achim Steiner, UNEP
Executive Director, Ikuo Kabashima, Governor
of Kumamoto Prefecture, and Katsuaki Miyamoto,
Mayor of Minamata
Kumamoto, Japan, 10
October 2013: Japan, a country which has
come to epitomize mercury poisoning in modern
times, today became one of the first countries
to sign a historic new international convention
to reduce emissions and releases of the
toxic metal into air, land and water and
to phase out many products that contain
mercury.
The Minamata Convention
on Mercury - a global, legally binding treaty
which opened for signature today - was agreed
to by governments in January and formally
adopted as international law today.
The new treaty is the
first new global convention on environment
and health for close to a decade. Coming
at a time when some multilateral negotiations
have faced challenges, its successful negotiation,
after a four-year process, provides a new
momentum to intergovernmental cooperation
on the environment.
Its agreement is also
significant in that many countries, despite
the lingering effects of the global financial
crisis, remained prepared to commit resources
to combating the harmful effects of mercury.
Countries began the
recognition for this new treaty at a special
ceremonial opening of the Diplomatic Conference
in Minamata, the city where many local people
were poisoned in the mid-20th Century after
eating mercury-contaminated seafood from
Minamata Bay. As a consequence, the neurological
syndrome caused by severe mercury poisoning
has come to be known as Minamata Disease.
But the Minamata that
delegates visited yesterday during a special
field trip from the main conference venue
in nearby Kumamoto City, is a vastly different
place to that affected by mercury in the
mid-1950s. Since then the city has remodelled
itself as an eco-city, receiving international
recognition for its wide range of recycling
and environmental programmes.
The Minamata Convention
provides for controls and reductions across
a range of products, processes and industries
where mercury is used, released or emitted.
The treaty also addresses the direct mining
of mercury, export and import of the metal,
and safe storage of waste mercury.
Pinpointing populations
at risk, boosting medical care and better
training of health-care professionals in
identifying and treating mercury-related
effects will all result from adherence to
the obligations of the new treaty.
"The Minamata Convention
will protect people and improve standards
of living for millions around the world,
especially the most vulnerable,'' United
Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said
in an address read to the conference. "Let
us strive to achieve universal adherence
to this valuable new instrument, and advance
together toward a safer, more sustainable
and healthier planet for all."
"Mercury has some
severe effects, both on human health and
on the environment. UNEP has been proud
to facilitate and support the treaty negotiation
over the past four years because almost
everyone in the world - be they small-scale
gold miners, expectant mothers or waste-handlers
in developing countries - will benefit from
its provisions," said Achim Steiner,
Executive Director of the United Nations
Environment Programme (UNEP) and Under-Secretary
General of the United Nations.
Global action on mercury
was agreed to in a landmark decision at
the United Nations Environment Programme's
Governing Council meeting in 2009.
Governments unanimously
decided to launch negotiations on an international
mercury treaty to deal with world-wide emissions
and discharges of the pollutant, which threatens
the health of millions, from foetuses and
babies to small-scale gold miners and their
families.
Mercury's impacts on
the human nervous system have been known
for more than a century: the Mad Hatter
of Alice in Wonderland fame was so called
because hat-makers used the liquid metal
to strengthen brims, breathing in the poisonous
fumes.
Other potential impacts
include impaired thyroid and liver function,
irritability, tremors, disturbances to vision,
memory loss and cardiovascular problems.
"With the signing
of the Minamata Convention on Mercury we
will be going a long way in protecting the
world forever from the devastating health
consequences from mercury," says WHO
Director-General Dr Margaret Chan. "Mercury
is one of the top ten chemicals of major
public health concern and is a substance
which disperses into and remains in ecosystems
for generations, causing severe ill health
and intellectual impairment to exposed populations."
Governments successfully
completed their negotiations at the fifth
session of the intergovernmental negotiating
committee to prepare a global legally binding
instrument on mercury, held in Geneva from
13 to 18 January 2013. They agreed to the
text of the "Minamata Convention on
Mercury", which has now been presented
for adoption and opened for signature at
the Conference of Plenipotentiaries Diplomatic
Conference, taking place at Hotel Nikko
in Kumamoto and in Minamata, Japan, from
9 to 11 October 2013.
The Diplomatic Conference
was preceded by an intergovernmental preparatory
meeting on 7 and 8 October 2013 in Kumamoto.
Some key facts about
the Diplomatic Conference:
Over 1,000 participants
Convention adopted by 139 governments
Convention signed by 92 governments
Treaty provisions
Under the provisions
of the Minamata Convention, Governments
have agreed on a range of mercury-containing
products whose production, import and export
will be banned by 2020. These items have
non-mercury alternatives that will be further
phased in as these are phased out. They
include:
Batteries, except for
'button cell' batteries used in implantable
medical devices
Switches and relays
Some compact fluorescent lamps
Mercury in cold cathode fluorescent lamps
and external electrode fluorescent lamps
Soaps and cosmetics (mercury is used in
skin-whitening products)
Some mercury-containing medical items such
as thermometers and blood pressure devices.
Mercury from small-scale gold-mining and
from coal-fired power stations represent
the biggest source of mercury pollution
worldwide. Miners inhale mercury during
smelting, and mercury run-off into rivers
and streams contaminates fish, the food
chain and people downstream.
Under the Minamata Convention,
Governments have agreed that countries will
draw up strategies to reduce the amount
of mercury used by small-scale miners and
that national plans will be drawn up within
three years of the treaty entering into
force to reduce - and if possible eliminate
- mercury.
The Convention will
also control mercury emission and releases
from large-scale industrial plants such
as coal-fired power stations, industrial
boilers, waste incinerators and cement clinkers
facilities.
