BRS COPS 2019

The fourteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Basel Convention (BC COP-14), the ninth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Rotterdam Convention (RC COP-9) and the ninth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Stockholm Convention (SC COP-9) were held back to back from 29 April to 10 May 2019, in Geneva. The theme of the meetings was « Clean Planet, Healthy People: Sound Management of Chemicals and Waste ». The meetings included joint sessions covering matters of relevance to at least two conventions and separate sessions of the meetings of the each of the three COPs. The meetings did not feature a high-level segment.

The meetings, attended by about 1,400 participants, from 180 countries, adopted 73 decisions, including seven identical decisions for the three meetings on: international cooperation and coordination, cooperation between the joint Secretariat of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions and the Secretariat of the Minamata Convention, the clearing-house mechanism for information exchange, synergies in preventing and combating illegal traffic and trade in hazardous chemicals and wastes, “from science to action”, dates and venue of the next meetings of the conferences of the Parties and existing United Nations guidelines on the mobilization of resources from non-state actors.

Thanks to voluntary contributions from Denmark, Finland, Germany, Norway and Switzerland, financial support was provided to support the participation of developing country Parties and Parties with economies in transition to attend the meetings.