NewsBrief  

No. 37 - March 2002

  TM


This Issue:

  • Support for NZ View

  • Security Alert Welcome to "Year of the Horse"

  • Increasing Compliance Costs

  • Waste Management

  • Responsible Care

  • New HSNO Performance Standards

  • Haz Subs Identification

  • No Anzus Trade Talks?

  • New Partner

  • Chemcall Benefits OSH

  • New Workplace Noise Standards

  • Environmental Clipboard

  • Kiwi Ambassador to WTO

  • New Food Safety Authority

  • Research Chemist Vacancy

New Zealand's Chemical View Supported

New Zealand successfully argued for improving existing chemical management systems rather than
"reinventing the wheel" when the UN Environment Programme governing council met recently, Environment Minister Marian Hobbs, said.

Marian Hobbs was one of 90 environment ministers who met at Cartagena, Colombia. The need for a strategic approach to international chemical management was high on the agenda and the NZCIC NZCIC briefed the Minister on the ICCA's recommendation a new bureaucracy to manage the initiative was unnecessary.

"Initial proposals were seen by many countries as 're-inventing the wheel' and based too firmly on European Union rather than international standards," Marian Hobbs said. "New Zealand argued that the existing system should be improved upon rather than replicated. But we did agree that far more effort was necessary in moving the agenda forward."

The approach now being taken is anchored in the existing Intergovernmental Forum on Chemical Safety (IFCS) Bahia Declaration framework.

Dr Klaus Toepfer, the Executive Director of UNEP, was tasked with identifying any gaps in the current international system. He was invited to work with the Inter-Organisation Programme for Sound Management of Chemicals, the IFCS, stakeholders, governments and other organisations.

Dr Toepfer was also asked to convene an open ended consultative meeting to further develop the strategic approach.

Ministers are expecting a report at their next UNEP Governing Council meeting in Nairobi in early 2003.

NZCIC CEO Barry Dyer welcomed the UNEP decision, noting the requirement to report progress on implementing the long awaited Global harmonisation System to the "Rio+10"Conference in September was a further incentive to streamline existing chemical management systems.

 

 

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