Garnering two new ratifications during the past week, the Kiev Protocol on Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers (PRTRs) to the Aarhus Convention moved closer to becoming a binding international treaty.
Denmark and Sweden deposited their insruments of ratification of the Kiev Protocol with the United Nations Secretary-General on 13 and 15 October 2008, respectively, raising the number of ratifications to twelve.
Sixteen ratifications by member States fo the United Nations are needed to bring the Protocol into force. The Protocol still needs to gather five more ratifications, as the European Community's approval of the instrument does not count toward achieving the needed threshold.
Denmark and Sweden join Norway and Croatia in having ratified the Protocol since the third meeting of the Parties to the Aarhus Convention, 11-13 June 2008, in Riga, Latvia. The Riga Meeting called upon Signatories to move swiftly on ratification of the Protocol in order to bring about its entry into force by 2009.
[Source: UNECE]
