A global
treaty to control the use and trade of heavy metal mercury has been adopted at
an international UN-organized conference in Japan. It is the world's first
legally binding agreement on the toxic substance.
Delegates from some 140 countries and territories on Thursday signed the United Nations Minamata Convention on Mercury, which aims to curb health and environmental damage caused by the highly toxic metal.
The treaty
was named after and signed in the Japanese city of Minamata, where thousands of
people fell ill in the 1950s and 1960s as a result of industrial emissions of
the toxic substance. Around 2,000 people in the city have since died from the
illness, contracted from ingesting large amounts of mercury from fish and
shellfish taken from polluted waters.
The disease
they developed is now known as Minamata disease. Mercury poisoning causes
damage to the immune system and disorders of the brain and nervous system.
The treaty
will take effect 90 days after its ratification by 50 countries, a process
which the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) expects to take three to
four years.
Among other
things, the treaty envisages the phasing out of many products, including
mercury thermometers, by 2020. It also gives governments 15 years to end all
mercury mining.
However,
environmental groups have criticized the fact that the treaty fails to address
the use of mercury in artisanal and small-scale gold mining, which directly
threatens the health of many miners, including child laborers, in several
developing countries.
UNEP has
estimated that the cost of health and environmental damage caused by exposure
to mercury can be set at $22 billion (16.26 billion euros). In a report
entitled "Global Chemicals Outlook" published last year, it warned
that the growing use of chemicals, especially in developing countries, where
adequate safeguards do not exist, was increasingly damaging people's health and
the environment.
tj/hc (AFP, dpa)
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