Statement by the Special Rapporteur on toxics and human rights at the Fourth Session of the International Conference on Chemical Management

28 September 2015

Mr. President, excellencies, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen:

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today—a crucial meeting with the potential to set the pace and trajectory of efforts to achieve the sound management of chemicals globally.

Nine years ago, SAICM participants made an explicit commitment in the Dubai Declaration on International Chemicals Management to respect human rights. Since then, positive steps have been taken and I applaud all stakeholders—governments, businesses and civil society—for taking these steps. But, for all countries, more work is needed.

The chemicals and waste Conventions leave many gaps and challenges at the global level. When viewed through the lens of human rights, the impacts of these gaps and challenges on individuals sharpen into focus.

SAICM has the potential to narrow critical gaps, address some of these challenges, and thereby make contributions to protecting, realizing and respecting human rights. But a more strategic approach is needed for SAICM to achieve its potential to reduce the grave impacts of toxic chemicals on human rights. Among the rights implicated and all too often violated by toxic chemicals are the right to life, the right to the highest attainable standard of health, the right to nutritious food, the right to safe water, as well as the right to information and an effective remedy.

Human rights are universal, in that they must be afforded to everyone and must be guaranteed without discrimination of any kind. Around the world, in countries of all levels of development, groups of individuals unjustly suffer grave impacts from toxic and otherwise hazardous substances. Among these groups are workers, women, children, low-income, minority and marginalized communities, and indigenous peoples. Those who need the most protection far too often have the least. Resolving this injustice should, in my view, be integral to achieving the sound management of chemicals.

Yesterday, the UN Special Rapporteur on Food, Hilal Elver and myself are called on all countries to take urgent action towards the elimination of Highly Hazardous Pesticides, as they present profound and unmanageable risks, particularly to agricultural workers and children. Human rights are interdependent and indivisible. The right to food is interdependent and indivisible from other human rights, such as the right to life and health and safe working conditions, among others. The realization of all these rights requires a transition away from HHPs to safer alternatives.

The vulnerability of children to toxic chemicals continues to receive grossly inadequate attention around the world. Each child has the right to the highest attainable standard of health. Nearly every State in this room has ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which requires States pursuant to Article 24(2)(c) to take environmental threats into account in realizing the right of children to the highest attainable standard of health. SAICM’s efforts on lead, EDCs, and pharmaceutical pollutants are critical to the duty of States to protect the right of the child to the highest attainable standard of health. However, information necessary to protect this right, and information to hold violators accountable, is often neither available nor accessible.

In my annual report to the UN Human Rights Council, I detailed the scope, content, and challenges to realizing the right to information on hazardous substances. The right to information requires that information about hazardous substances must be available and accessible, and be of a form that functions to protect the rights of everyone. The Overall Orientation and Guidance notes that less progress has been measured on the Knowledge and Information pillar of SAICM’s Overarching Policy Strategy, and I am pleased to see that Guidance includes both basic elements and clear action points that would better enable the realization of the right to information on hazardous substances and waste.

As participants decide what actions would make the greatest contribution toward achieving the sound management of chemicals in the next five years, I would encourage participants to place themselves in the position of those most at risk, and take concrete actions toward what we know is required to protect their rights.

Thank you.