Manila — While Philippine President Benigno Aquino III delivered his final State of the Nation Address (SONA) yesterday, international watchdog group Basel Action Network (BAN) and environmental justice organization BAN Toxics (BT) submitted the case of the Canadian waste dumping incident to the Basel Convention Secretariat to start the proceedings on Canada’s negligence to its treaty obligation.
“It’s lamentable that President Aquino did not mention the Canadian waste at all in his SONA. We know that the Philippine government have been pressured by Canada not to put up a fuss, so we are not counting on our government to file a non-compliance brief,” said BT Executive Director Atty. Richard Gutierrez.
BAN and BT, in their letter to the Basel Convention Secretariat, assert that as household wastes are a Basel Convention Annex II waste, Canada is bound to strictly control their export. Canada however has maintained that its domestic laws do not control household waste, which indicates Canada’s failure to properly transpose their international treaty obligations into domestic law.
“Canada has admitted to us that it has failed to properly implement the Basel Convention. This means that they are not in compliance and that has resulted in significant economic and environmental harm to the Philippines,” said Jim Puckett, Executive Director of the Basel Action Network. “We have asked them on several occasions to take responsibility required of them under the law and they have simply refused.”
Under the rules of the Vienna Convention, failure to properly transpose treaty obligations into domestic law cannot be used as an excuse to not fulfill those obligations.
The Basel Convention has adopted an implementation and compliance mechanism and a special committee (ICC) for handling matters of non-compliance. Cases can only be brought to the ICC either by the country out of compliance (Canada), an impacted country (Philippines) or by the Secretariat. The groups say that the Secretariat is well within its rights to take this matter to the ICC with a view to assisting Canada and other nations to properly implement the Convention for household wastes. (BAN Toxics)
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