29. It is crucial to note that the international trade in hazardous, including nuclear wastes, not only subjects land territories to the risks of dumping, but the territorial waters and the global commons of the high seas are threatened as well. The allure of ocean dumping by waste traders is obvious. It is extremely easy and virtually liability free to throw wastes in barrels or bulk into the sea even though the environmental implications can be severe.

30. Today, as the marine environment has become increasingly degraded, there has been a shift in thinking away from the principle of assuming a harmless "assimilative capacity", toward the view that all contamination of the marine environment, especially by synthetic and persistent substances, should be significantly reduced or eliminated even where there is inadequate or inconclusive evidence to prove a causal link between emission and effects. This "precautionary principle" has been adopted by many fora.

31. The Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matters (London Dumping Convention, LDC) seeks to control pollution of the sea by dumping, and to encourage regional agreements supplementary to the Convention. During the Thirteenth Consultative Meeting of this Convention (London, October-November 1990), the Contracting Parties agreed that the dumping of industrial wastes shall cease by 31 December 1995, and encouraged the adoption of individual or regional commitments to cease dumping of industrial wastes before 31 December 1995. The LDC however will still allow the dumping of many types of hazardous wastes, and not all the Contracting Parties to the Cartagena Convention are Contracting Parties to this Convention. Furthermore, there is no mechanism to this day to monitor, let alone enforce law against any illegal form of ocean dumping.

32. It is crucial that within the sensitive marine environment of the Wider Caribbean region, ocean dumping is banned and a method is provided by which illegal ocean dumping can be discovered and made punishable.

OCEAN INCINERATION

A Failed Technology

33. Ocean incineration is the burning of toxic, persistent, industrial wastes in shipboard incinerators and dispersing the residual matter into the atmosphere. The system is designed to burn liquid, organic chemicals with a high caloric content, most notably organochlorides and other halogenated hydrocarbons. Wastes from the pesticide, plastic, pharmaceutical and wood preservatives industries, and used chlorinated solvents are among those wastes that have been incinerated at sea.

34. This method of ocean dumping has served as one escape route for extremely hazardous byproducts of inefficient production processes for nearly twenty years. Ocean incineration's only real "advantage" over other dangerous disposal methods such as landfilling or land-based incineration is that it is an activity out of public view and control. Furthermore, it is attractive to generators of wastes as it is virtually impossible to substantiate a liability case for airborne toxins.

35. The major problems of ocean incineration are:

i. No incineration process can operate with an efficiency of 100%. Therefore, some portions of the original chemicals fed into the system are always released into the marine environment.

ii. Many new compounds known as "products of incomplete combustion" are produced in the incineration process and are themselves extremely hazardous. Chemicals routinely identified as "products of incomplete combustion" include dioxins and furans, two of the most toxic manmade compounds known.

iii. The types of waste burned at sea are known to adversely affect living organisms, especially the organohalogens.

iv. Ocean incineration frequently requires the long distance transport of hazardous waste, on land and at sea, creating the potential for chemicals spills.

36. Today's science cannot easily measure to what extent ocean incineration emissions have affected the marine environment. It is known that the type of chemicals burned at sea are some of the most toxic, persistent, bioaccumulative substances on earth. One chemical, a fungicide called hexachlorobenzene, has been recently detected in elevated concentrations in the sediment of the North Sea burn zone. Scientists suspect that ocean incineration is a significant contributor to the build-up.

Moves to Ban Ocean Incineration

37. As of January 1991 with a final voyage of the Vulcanus II, ocean incineration has ceased. It remains to be seen if others will seek to reinvent this practise in other parts of the world. While practiced in Europe, ocean incineration never gained acceptance as an environmentally sound method of toxic waste disposal. The Contracting Parties to the Convention on the Protection of the Environment of the Baltic Sea Area banned all ocean incineration in the Baltic Sea. The Eleventh Consultative Meeting of the London Dumping Convention, 6 October 1988, agreed to terminate ocean incineration by 31 December 1994. On 3-6 October 1989, the Parties to the Convention for the Protection of the Mediterranean Sea Against Pollution (Barcelona Convention) banned ocean incineration in the Mediterranean. Since then the North Sea Ministers Conference in March 1990 agreed on a phase out of all ocean incineration operations by 31 December 1991. The Contracting Parties to the Oslo Convention (International Agreement on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping from Ships and Aircrafts) decided at their sixteenth meeting to terminate incineration at sea by 31 December 1991.

38. In 1984 and 1986, the U.S. EPA formally refused to grant permits for any ocean incineration using U.S. ports or waters, citing scientific, technical and legal problems as well as public opposition. In 1986, over 15,000 signatures were gathered and over 6,000 people attended hearings in Texas alone in protest of plans to conduct test burns in the Gulf of Mexico. Finally in 1988 the EPA cancelled its entire ocean incineration programme, based upon recommendation of Congress.

An Ocean Incineration Ban in the Cartagena Convention

39. The recent decision by the Mediterranean countries to ban ocean incineration within the United Nations Environment Programmme's Regional Sea Convention, the Barcelona Convention, was taken due to the real fear that the ocean incineration industry, once banned in the North Sea, would seek to establish this obsolete technology elsewhere. Today the regions especially vulnerable to this industry include the South Pacific, South-East Asia and the Wider Caribbean.

40. At the First Meeting of Contracting Parties to the Cartagena Convention October 1987, participants expressed concern about the possibility of waste being imported into the region from countries outside the Convention area. Venezuela and other countries introduced a resolution prohibiting ocean incineration. However, in the spirit of compromise during this initial official gathering, Contracting Parties agreed to weaker language. The resolution that was finally adopted, simply urged States to "refrain from authorizing the disposal [of wastes] at sea" except "in accordance with global rules and standards established by the London Dumping Convention."

41. If ocean incineration is not acceptable for European seas, then it is certainly not acceptable for other seas where the ocean environments may consist of yet more fragile ecosystems, and where the people are perhaps even more dependent upon them for a source of protein and livelihood. It would be very prudent of the Cartagena Contracting Parties to the Convention to take action now as was done within the Barcelona Convention to prohibit the transfer of ocean incineration to its own Convention Area.