Chemicals listed in the Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions
Australia is a party to several international agreements and treaties to regulate the trade of certain hazardous chemicals. These provide information and guidance so that countries can make informed decisions about the chemicals they want to receive, and exclude those they cannot manage safely.
Chemicals listed in the Rotterdam PIC Convention
Annex III to the Rotterdam Convention is a list of pesticides and industrial chemicals that have been severely restricted for health or environmental reasons. Most Annex III-listed industrial chemicals cannot be imported or exported without authorisation. This is known as the Prior Informed Consent (PIC) procedure.
If you wish to trade certain Annex III-listed industrial chemicals, you must apply in writing and pay a fee.
Next steps:
- Apply to annually import a chemical covered under the Rotterdam Convention
- Apply to annually export a chemical covered under the Rotterdam Convention
Chemicals listed in the Stockholm POPs Convention
The Stockholm Convention is a global treaty that aims to protect human health and the environment from the effects of persistent organic pollutants (POPs). Australia does not automatically adopt controls for these chemicals, but must take measures to eliminate or reduce their release into the environment.
The United Nations describes POPs as “chemical substances that persist in the environment, bio-accumulate through the food web, and pose a risk of causing adverse effects to human health and the environment.
"With the evidence of long-range transport of these substances to regions where they have never been used or produced and the consequent threats they pose to the environment of the whole globe, the international community has now, at several occasions called for urgent global actions to reduce and eliminate releases of these chemicals."
To ensure Australian compliance with this treaty, we must consider the Stockholm criteria in all of our chemical assessments (the pollutants' criteria in Annex D of the Convention).