Negotiations are on in Vienna, Austria to ensure safety of human health and environment from the chemical hazards. The global chemical industry boasts annual sales of some one and a half trillion US dollars, or about 3.75% of the global GDP of 40 trillion dollars. Some 70,000 chemicals are available on the market today and around 1,000 new ones are introduced every year.

The sheer scale of chemicals production and use can pose a major challenge to governments attempting to monitor and manage these potentially dangerous substances. Around the world, accidents and the inadequate management of hazardous chemicals and wastes kill or sicken thousands of people every year and cause wide-ranging impacts on the environment.

Representatives of the world’s governments, intergovernmental organisations and other stakeholder groups are meeting in Vienna to finalize arrangements for the launch of the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM). The strategic approach is to promote the incorporation of chemical safety issues into the development agenda.

The third session of the Preparatory Committee for the Development of a Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM PrepCom-3) is under way from 19th September and it will conclude its session on 24th September.

SAICM is to be formally adopted and launched by ministers and other senior representatives of various stakeholder groups at the International Conference on Chemicals Management in Dubai, United Arab Emirates from 4 – 6 February 2006.

The Strategic Approach aims provide an overarching framework for global action on chemical hazards and enable governments and other stakeholders to collaborate more effectively on minimizing potential risks. It focuses efforts on achieving the goal agreed at the 2002 Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development of ensuring by the year 2020 that chemicals are produced and used in ways that minimize significant adverse impacts on the environment and human health.

This third and final SAICM preparatory meeting comes immediately after the World Summit in New York, which gathered together over 150 heads of state. The 2020 goal was reconfirmed by the declaration adopted by the Summit.

The Vienna meeting aims to finalize SAICM’s three core documents: the High﷓level Declaration, the Overarching Policy Strategy (which will outline what countries hope to achieve through SAICM) and the Global Plan of Action (which will serve as a "tool kit" of voluntary national actions).

The outstanding issues include the institutional and funding arrangements that are needed to ensure SAICM’s success. Debates on the principles and approaches determine how SAICM works in practice. The Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management has been developed through a highly participatory process involving developed and developing country governments, nongovernmental organizations, industry groups and multilateral agencies.

To meet the challenge of chemical safety, governments have adopted over 50 regional and international agreements on chemicals and wastes management. The key global treaties include the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, the 1989 Basel Convention on the Transboundary Movement of Hazardous and Other Wastes, the 1998 Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade, and the 2001 Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs).

SAICM’s focus is on promoting capacity building, technology transfer and improved chemicals management. One of its key benefits would be the improved implementation of these and other treaties.

Background:

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Governing Council, at its seventh Special Session in February 2002, adopted Decision SS.VII/3 (on a “Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management” (SAICM). The Governing Council decided that there is a need to further develop a strategic approach and endorsed as a foundation for such an approach the IFCS Bahia Declaration and Priorities for Action Beyond 2000.

The initiative was subsequently endorsed by the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in September 2002.In February 2003 a progress report was considered by UNEP Governing Council. The Council adopted decision 22/4 IV endorsing the concept of an international conference to be held around the end of 2005. A first preparatory meeting, “SAICM PrepCom1”, was held in Bangkok from 9 to 13 November 2003, following on from the IFCS Forum IV meeting. The second session, SAICM PrepCom2, was held in Nairobi, Kenya, from 4 to 8 October 2004. The last session of the PrepCom (SAICM PrepCom3) is taking place in Vienna, Austria, from 19, 2005. An "International Conference on Chemicals Management" (ICCM) to adopt the completed SAICM is scheduled for Dubai, United Arab Emirates before the 9th Special Session of UNEP Governing Council and Global Ministerial Environment Forum.