Switzerland has become the second 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 27 April 2007. The Protocol, which was signed in May 2003, in Kiev, Ukraine, will enter into force on the ninetieth day after the date of deposit of the sixteenth instrument of ratification, under article 27 of the Protocol.
The European Community has also ratified the Kiev Protocol and the 27 European Union countries are preparing national PRTR reports in line with the requirements of the Protocol for release in 2009. The Protocol's entry into force by the end of 2007 is expected to allow the Parties to hold the first session of the Meeting of the Parties to the Protocol back-to-back with the third meeting of the Parties to the Convention, scheduled for June 2008 in Riga, Latvia.
[Revised 1 May 2007]
