Tools for the development of legal frameworks

Guide to the Development of National Legal Frameworks to Implement the Basel Convention

Prepared by the Implementation and Compliance Committee and adopted by the Conference of the Parties at its fourteenth meeting (decision BC-14/15), the Guide is a comprehensive guidance document intended to help Parties ensure that they have in place adequate legal frameworks to fully implement the Convention. It is the primary guidance document Parties can turn to, to develop new legislation or to review existing legislation. It addresses both in detail the process for drafting legislation and the content of the legislative provision, including by providing templates that can be used to transpose the Convention’s provisions in national legislation as well as actual examples of Parties’ legislation implementing individual provisions of the Convention. It is available in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish.

Manual for the Implementation of the Basel Convention, including the Checklist for the Legislator 

The Manual for the Implementation of the Basel Convention, including the Checklist for the Legislator (available in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish) was adopted by the Conference of the Parties at its twelfth meeting (decision BC-12/7).

The manual was developed to assist Parties and others in understanding their obligations under the Basel Convention. The Checklist is aimed at the legislator who will be drafting the national implementing legislation and seeks to identify the most fundamental matters that should be addressed in national implementing legislation, taking into account that such legislation may be combined with national legislation to implement the Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade and the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants.

It should be noted that this checklist does not address all matters that a legislator could choose to address in national implementing legislation. 

Glossary of terms

The Glossary of Terms was developed by the Small Intersessional Working Group on legal clarity and adopted by the thirteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (Decision BC-13/2). Its purpose is to clarify certain terms, in particular in relation to the distinction between wastes and non-wastes, in order to improve the implementation of the Convention and the application of technical guidelines and guidance documents developed under the Convention. It includes definitions of terms and further explanations and is available in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish.

Review of issues of general implementation and compliance

As part of its work programme for the biennium 2020-2021, the Basel Convention Implementation and Compliance Committee is inviting Parties to undertake a self-review of their legislation for implementing the Convention, using the legislators’ checklist and considering general trends.

It is monitoring requests for information received by the Secretariat from Parties aimed at facilitating the development and review of national legal frameworks, as well as the Secretariat’s technical assistance activities aimed at promoting the implementation of paragraph 4 of Article 4 and paragraph 5 of Article 9 of the Convention. The work programme also includes monitoring activities undertaken by or with the support of the BCRCs, UNEP and other entities aimed at assisting Parties to develop legal frameworks for the implementation of the Basel Convention.

Taking into account these monitoring activities, the Committee will develop recommendations on how to improve implementation of and compliance with the provisions of the Convention relating to measures taken by Parties to implement and enforce the Convention.