As the summer of 2007 nears its end, two Aarhus Parties have accelerated the pace of ratification of the Kiev Protocol on Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers and the GMO amendment to the Aarhus Convention.
On 30 August, Lithuania deposited its instrument of ratification to the amendment on public participation in decision-making on the deliberate release into the environment and placing on the market of genetically modified organisms (decision II/1).
Bugaria, Denmark and Luxembourg have also ratified the GMO amendment. The amendment will enter into force only after three-quarters of the Covention's Parties ratify it.
Pace of Protocol ratifications speeds up
Germany became the fourth country to ratify the Protocol on Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers to the Aarhus Convention, having deposited its instrument of ratification with the Secretary-General of the United Nations on 28 August 2007.
Germany's action raises the number of Parties to the treaty to five, the European Community (EC) having ratified the Protocol in early 2006. Luxembourg also ratified the treaty in 2006, the first Party to do so. Unlike the EC ratification, Luxembourg's action counts toward reaching the required sixteen ratifications needed to bring the Protocol into force.
So far, 2007 has seen three additional Member States ratify: Switzerland, Estonia and Germany.
To guarantee the Protocol's entry into force in time to allow the first session of the Meeting of the Parties to the Protocol to be held back-to-back with the third session of the Meeting of the Parties to the Convention, twelve further Member State ratifications must be secured by early 2008.
"We are on the razor's edge," commented Michel Amand, Chairman of the UNECE Working Group of the Protocol, when asked to comment on the prospects for meeting this target for early entry into force.
The third sesion of the Convention's Meeting of the Parties is scheduled for 11-13 June 2008, in Riga, Latvia.
