Why Hazardous Waste Keeps Flowing to the Global South – The Basel Convention

Post by Daniya Binte Ahsan

In 2006, the Probo Koala, an old cargo ship, traversed the ocean in a four-month voyage that resulted in one of the biggest toxic waste related scandals in recent history. Trafigura, a multinational trading company, onloaded dirty petroleum byproducts, including substances such as hydrogen sulfide, caustic soda and other dangerous chemicals and hired a local company in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire which dumped the toxic waste in at least eighteen locations in and

around the main city. The people of Abidjan woke up the next day to appalling health problems, with at least fifteen deaths linked to the illegal wastage dumping. The roots of Trafigura attempt at sailing around the law can be traced back to the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal (the Basel Convention). As companies sought to find cheaper sites for disposal of waste with the increase in industrialization, the 1970s and 1980s saw an exponential increase in the regulation and control of hazardous waste disposal - especially in developed countries. So, while industrialized countries generated most of this waste, quantities steadily increased in developing countries. Although these lucrative economic incentives made such trade from the North to the South initially welcomed, illegal dumping became a notoriously difficult practice to circumvent.

Resultantly, the Basel Convention was negotiated under the auspices of the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) in the late 1980s, entering into force in 1992 (three years after its initial adoption). As of 2025, 191 states are party to the Convention – with the unique exclusion of the United States of America. The guiding principles of the Basel Convention was to prohibit the transport of hazardous waste to states with less-advanced storage and disposal facilities unless otherwise provided with detailed information on the waste shipment and given prior written consent in an effort to reduce the generation and transboundary movements environmentally safe management of hazardous waste. Given its aims to reduce transboundary movements of hazardous wastes destined for disposal operations, the Basel Convention may be viewed as a regulatory rather than a prohibitory international mechanism.

How then, did the crisis in Côte d’Ivoire emerge? A close reading of the language utilized reveals relatively ambiguous nature of its provisions. Non-conformity in the use of terminologies leaves ambiguity in their interpretation, inviting flexibility in reading its provisions and allowing exporters to exploit the language for the Convention under the pretext of exporting waste as ‘commodities’. As what is seen as waste in one area may be viewed as holding reusable or recyclable value, the trend of ‘sham’ recycling has emerged, allowing for hazardous waste to be legally traded, even when developing countries lack the technology to safely dispose of the toxic substances emerging from the recycled waste, leading to adverse health and environmental consequences. 

The Conference of Parties to the Convention have, since its inception, continually strived to strengthen the implementation mechanisms. Some of the initiatives include the (what some might call an abysmally late) enforcement of the “Ban Amendment” almost fifteen years after its adoption, the development of the nonbinding technical guidelines and the adoption of the Basel Protocol on Liability and Compensation to provide financial and technological assistance to developing countries. However, its implementation is still riddled with challenges today. While the emergent policy and economic incentives make for effective promotional premises, the achievement of its main objectives remains elusive. In the end, these shortcomings may most directly be attributed to the arguably unfair influence and sway that developed countries have over developing countries – as short-term, economic gain seems to constantly out weight the long-term costs to the environment.