Minamata Convention on Mercury
| Minamata Convention on Mercury | |
|---|---|
| Type | United Nations treaty |
| Signed | 10 October 2013 |
| Location | Kumamoto, Japan |
| Effective | 16 August 2017 |
| Condition | Ninety days after the ratification by at least 50 states |
| Signatories | 128 |
| Parties | 65 |
| Depositary | Secretary-General of the United Nations |
| Languages | Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish |
The Minamata Convention on Mercury is an international treaty designed to protect human health and the environment from anthropogenic emissions and releases of mercury and mercury compounds. This Convention was a result of three years of meeting and negotiating, after which the text of the Convention was approved by delegates representing close to 140 countries on 19 January 2013 in Geneva and adopted and signed later that year on 10 October 2013 on a Diplomatic Conference held in Kumamoto, Japan. The Convention is named after the Japanese city Minamata. This naming is of symbolic importance as the city went through devastating incident of mercury poisoning. It is expected that over the next few decades, this international agreement will enhance the reduction of mercury pollution from the targeted activities responsible for the major release of mercury to the immediate environment.
Mercury is a naturally occurring element. It can be released to the environment from natural sources – such as weathering of mercury-containing rocks, forest fires, volcanic eruptions or geothermal activities – but also from human activities. An estimated 5500-8900 tons of mercury is currently emitted and re-emitted each year to the atmosphere, with much of the re-emitted mercury considered to be related to human activity, as are the direct releases.
Due to its unique properties, mercury has been used in various products and processes for hundreds of years. Currently, it is mostly utilised in industrial processes that produce chlorine (mercury chlor-alkali plants) or vinyl chloride monomer for polyvinyl chloride (PVC) production, and polyurethane elastomers. It is extensively used to extract gold from ore in artisanal and small-scale gold mining. It is contained in products such as electrical switches (including thermostats), relays, measuring and control equipment, energy-efficient fluorescent light bulbs, batteries and dental amalgam. It is also used in laboratories, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, including in vaccines as a preservative, paints, and jewellery. Mercury is also released unintentionally from some industrial processes, such as coal-fired power and heat generation, cement production, mining and other metallurgic activities such as non-ferrous metals production, as well as from incineration of many types of waste.
Mercury and mercury compounds have long been known to be toxic to human health and the environment. Large-scale public health crises due to mercury poisoning, such as Minamata disease and Niigata Minamata disease, drew attention to the issue. In 1972, delegates to the on the Human Environment witnessed Japanese junior high school student Shinobu Sakamoto, disabled as the result of methylmercury poisoning in utero. The United Nations Environment Programme (UN Environment, previously UNEP) was established shortly thereafter. For more than a decade, UN Environment has been actively engaged in bringing the science of mercury poisoning to policy implementation. In 2001, the Executive Director of UN Environment was invited by its Governing Council to undertake a global assessment of mercury and its compounds, including the chemistry and health effects, sources, long-range transport, as well as prevention and control technologies relating to mercury.
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