Despite the approval of the union cabinet on the text of the Minamata Convention on Mercury held at Kumamoto in Japan in October 2013, and given its active participation in the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee meetings, India's impetuous stand on the convention is unexplainable and unjustifi able. This article appreciates the rationale of adopting a legally-binding approach, instead of much-pushed voluntary measures and why India, despite its active participation in the meetings, which shaped the convention, refused to sign it.
A proverb, every cloud has a silver lining, has interesting connotation with recent endeavours by the international community to adopt a legally-binding instrument, now known as the Minamata Convention on Mercury, as a ray of hope to protect the human health and environment from highly dangerous mercury contamination. This article is an attempt to appreciate the rationale of adopting a legally-binding approach (LBA), instead of much-pushed voluntary measures and why India, despite its active participation in the meetings, which shaped the convention, refused to sign it.
Mercury is a naturally occurring element (a heavy metal) having widespread uses globally. It is highly toxic, persists in the environment and has global ramifications on humans, wildlife and environment. It can be released into the air and water through natural processes such as weathering of rock containing mercury ore, volcanic eruptions or through human activities such as industrial processes, mining, deforestation, waste incineration and burning of fossil fuels. Mercury can also be released from a number of mercury-containing products including dental amalgam, electrical applications, laboratory and medical instruments including thermometers, batteries, compact fluorescent lamps, and other cosmetic products. Some mercury compounds are used in agriculture, principally as fungicides (substances that control fungus).
During the 1950s, in Minamata, Japan an outbreak of an unknown neurological illness was first reported among the area’s fishing families. They were diagnosed with the mysterious ailment, which was attributed to contaminated seafood.1 The people experienced neurological damages such as visual, auditory, and sensory disturbances, numbness, and difficulty in walking. In 1957 scientists gave the ailment a name: Minamata disease.2 The responsible contaminant was eventually identified as methyl mercury that had been discharged in wastewater from a local chemical factory owned by the Chisso Corporation.3 Even after six decades of the dreadful Minamata disaster, scientists are only now beginning to understand the adverse impacts of mercury contamination on humans, wildlife and environment.
A Global Peril
According to a 2013 report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), human activities are estimated to have released around 1,900 metric tonnes of mercury into the atmosphere and at least around 1,000 metric tonnes into the water in 2010. Burning of coal is the largest anthropogenic source of mercury air emissions, accounting for 45% of total emissions, while 18% comes from gold mining, as mercury helps separate gold from the rock and other sediments (Pirrone et al 2010).
In terms of coal-based emissions, China is the biggest emitter followed by the United States (US) and India.4Emissions from China are three times the combined emissions of the US and India. According to UNEP, mercury emissions have started reducing from Europe and North America, but a considerable amount of Asian emissions end up in Europe and in the US (UNEP 2008). Mercury tends to linger in the environment, as mercury emissions can travel far from their original sources on winds and ocean currents. A recent modelling study estimated that half the mercury pollution in the surface layer of the ocean today came from emissions prior to 1950, when the US and European contributions exceeded those from Asia (Amos et al 2013).
The problem of mercury is transboundary and global in nature. The global perils of mercury pollution were first addressed in the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, held in Stockholm during 1972. It was not until 2001, during the 21st session, that UNEP’s governing council (GC) decided to initiate a process to undertake a global assessment of heavy metals contamination, including mercury. The UNEP secretariat was asked to prepare a report with special emphasis on its effects on human health and environment.
Towards an Agreement
Since 2003, there had been an international agreement within UNEP to endeavour an international action on the serious environmental and health problems posed by mercury, but a major challenge was to identify the best approach to deal with the problem. Traditionally, the negotiators were aligned in two camps. For years, the US, India and China were against a legally-binding instrument, while Australia and Canada took a more reserved position. The European Union (EU), African countries, Norway, Switzerland, and some Latin American and Caribbean countries were strongly supportive of a LBA. Japan favoured stronger binding measures on mercury due to their experience from the Minamata incident, where several hundred Japanese citizens suffered from serious effects of mercury poisoning resulting from industrial pollution.
The US, during the administration of George W Bush, was forcing for a voluntary approach; however, when Barack Obama entered the White House in January 2009, the US announced it would move ahead with negotiations towards a legally-binding instrument. Nevertheless, this was what slowed the international process until the UNEP GC quite surprisingly agreed to go for a LBA in 2009. It was agreed that a mercury convention ought to be negotiated by 2013. The US policy reversal indicates that the arguments in favour of the pro-voluntary approach were rhetorical, designed only to showcase the ideological position of the Bush administration rather than expressing substantial effectiveness concerns (HighBeam Research 2009).
In 2009, the UNEP GC directed UNEP to convene an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) to begin work on a legally-binding mercury treaty. The scope of the mandate covered uses, trade and potential sources of mercury emissions, including mercury in products and processes, and mercury-containing wastes. The mandate focused only on mercury, notwithstanding attempts by the EU and some other countries to include a mechanism that would allow for the treaty to include other heavy metals of concern in the future.
Although, the number of parties favouring LBA was gradually growing and opposition to LBA from key stakeholders like India and China had softened in line with domestic policy development, the agreement reached at the 2009 meeting came as a great surprise to most of the observers. There is no doubt that the US weighed heavily in tilting the process towards consensus on the LBA. Still, the question of what made the increasingly powerful emerging countries like India and China turn into supporters of the LBA remains only partially answered.
Major contention behind the voluntary approach was in terms of its effectiveness: A voluntary approach was considered the best way of getting things done on the ground. In contrast, it was argued that the LBA took more time to negotiate; it was far costlier and may prove less effective in the long run. India was also strongly against the LBA, stressing its right to develop economically and also arguing that it had successfully dealt with the problem at home largely through voluntary measures. India argued that these voluntary measures had already cut domestic emissions by 80%, and further cuts were unlikely by either type of instrument. There had been a reduction from 321 metric tonnes in 2000 to 241 metric tonnes in 2004 in industrial mercury emissions in India (Pirrone et al 2010). India was not a major player before the 2009 GC meeting. In 2009, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) set 2012 to phase out mercury from two large domestic mercury sources (Down to Earth 2009): chlor-alkali plants and externally “donated” e-waste (Down to Earth 2010). Both sources were hard to control, the costs of new technologies are considered high, and industry wanted more time for its compliance. As in the case of China, India’s opposition to LBA was softened over time due to internal policy development. A binding international treaty would actually be used by the CPCB to put pressure on the reluctant domestic industries.
Impossible Alone
In October 2013, a new international convention to phase-out mercury was opened for signing at Kumamoto in Japan. Named the Minamata Convention on Mercury, the agreement is a response to the realisation that mercury pollution is a global problem that no single country can solve alone. With more than 140 nations agreeing by consensus to a final text in January 2013, the convention aims to protect human health and the environment from anthropogenic emissions and releases of mercury and mercury compounds. The countries also agreed to control and “where feasible” reduce emissions of mercury and mercury compounds (i e, “total mercury”) to the atmosphere through measures to control emissions from point source categories such as coal-fired power stations and non-ferrous metal smelters (e g, aluminum smelters).
The convention also calls for additional research on issues related to mercury. It includes both, compulsory and voluntary measures to control mercury release and emission from various sources, to phase the element out of certain products and industrial processes, to restrict its trade, and to eliminate its mining. Representatives from 92 countries formally signed the Minamata Convention, the world’s first legally-binding treaty; the convention sets a phase-out date of 2020 for a list of products and would give parties about 15 years to end all mercury mining.
To come into effect, the treaty has to be ratified by 50 countries. A time period of 90 days is required to come into effect from the date of ratification. Parties would then need to enact or harmonise relevant legislations in conformity with the provisions of the convention. The US became the first country to ratify the convention. Incidentally, the treaty does not focus much on the emission levels of mercury from industries nor does it specify any threshold for emissions. The issue related to the use of mercury in dental amalgam has also not been touched upon with any date set for its phase-out.
It is almost impossible to ascertain the quantum of mercury released in India and the number of people affected or likely to be affected by mercury poisoning. Interestingly, India, too has witnessed a near-Minamata like disaster almost a decade ago. In 2001, environmental groups and villagers exposed a thermometer manufacturing factory owned by a major multinational, Hindustan Lever, now Hindustan Unilever (HUL), dumping several tonnes of toxic mercury-bearing waste in a scrapyard in a densely populated part of Kodaikanal, a leading tourist’s destination of Tamil Nadu. The broken thermometers were dumped on land behind the factory, resulting in the mercury leaching into the soil. Following the incident, Kodaikanal was branded as India’s Minamata. Faced with the evidence, and HUL’s admission of breach of law, the factory was forced to close. Ultimately, the company had to arrange for the remediation of contaminated soil (EPW 2013).
Against the backdrop of Minamata disaster, and with lax monitoring and regulatory arrangements, we may be on the brink of another Minamata-like disaster. Despite approval of the union cabinet on the text of the Minamata Convention and given its active participation in the INC meetings, India’s impetuous stand on the convention is unexplainable and unjustifiable for adopting the Minamata Convention on Mercury. Also, the government’s inexplicable decision to skip such a historic event has also lost the country an opportunity to take global leadership in phasing out mercury. Minamata disaster shows us that we must not ignore the past, and the more we study and learn about it, the more it teaches us lessons about living, such as the value of the environment and health.
Notes
1 Minamata disease was officially discovered in 1956, and in 1968 the Government of Japan announced that it was a pollution-related disease caused due to discharge of untreated effluent containing mercury in the Minamata Bay by Chisso Corporation in Japan.
2 Minamata disease is a form of mercury poisoning caused by eating large quantities of sea-foods contaminated with methyl mercury. The disease affects the central nervous system, including the brain, spinal cord and nerves.
3 Chisso Corporation began as a hydroelectric power company in 1908. It began producing chemical fertilisers, and became Japan’s major chemical company. In addition to chemical fertilisers, Chisso produced acetic acid, vinyl chloride, and plasticisers. The company used mercury as a catalyst to produce acetaldehyde, which was used to produce acetic acid and vinyl chloride.
4 Mercury concentration in Indian coal ranges from 0.01-1.1 parts per million (ppm).
