Rotterdam Convention on Hazardous Chemicals: A Meaningful Step Toward Environmental Protection?, The

Georgetown International Environmental Law Review, Summer 2004 by Barrios, Paula

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), although more than 80% of the world's pesticides are applied in industrialized countries, about 99% of all poisonings occur in developing countries.27 Several factors might serve to explain this situation. First, many pesticides classified as extremely or highly hazardous by the WHO are still used in the South, while they are banned or severely restricted in the North.28 Second, in developing countries pesticides are usually applied by people with very limited or no training in safe application or storage. Studies of farmers and their families repeatedly show there is a high risk of exposure because of a lack of protective clothing, leaking spray equipment, the mixing and application of pesticides with bare hands, and the storage of pesticides with food.29 As a result, the risk of poisoning is much higher in the South than in the North. The best health data suggests, for instance, that Latin American farm workers are thirteen times more likely to suffer pesticide poisoning than farm workers in the United States.30 Lastly, while the Northern pesticide market is dominated by herbicides,31 most developing countries are greater consumers of insecticides,32 which are generally more toxic. With the exception of the herbicide paraquat, responsible for many accidental and intentional poisonings in the South,33 the great majority of accidental intoxications can be attributed to two groups of insecticides: organophosphates and carbamates.34 They both inhibit the action of acetylcholinesterase, an enzyme essential to the proper functioning of the nervous system.35

Very succinctly, there are four major groups of insecticides: organophosphates, carbamates, organochlorines, and synthetic pyrethroids.36 Organophosphates are usually very toxic to mammals.37 Poisoning symptoms include lack of coordination, vomiting, abdominal cramps, and respiratory failure.38 Some formulations of parathion, monocrotophos and phosphamidon (three organophosphates) are subject to the Rotterdam Convention.39 Carbamates are also nerve poisons, and most of them are toxic to mammals, although they are usually excreted rapidly.40 Serious poisoning effects include coma, seizures, and cardiorespiratory depression.41 Carbofuran, aldicarb, and carbaryl are examples of carbamates.42 Organochlorines are not acutely toxic, but many of them persist in the environment for a long period of time (two to fifteen years) and tend to accumulate in the food chain.43 As a result, they can negatively affect the environment or human health over time. While most conclusive studies refer to animals, epidemiological studies have found an association between exposure to organochlorines and various types of cancer, including lung, pancreatic and breast cancer.44 There is also evidence organochlorines affect the human immune system, particularly in the South, where immune responses are already weakened by malnutrition, contaminated water, lack of sanitation, and poor housing conditions, and large segments of the population still live in the countryside and work on farms.45 Organochlorines include DDT, aldrin, dieldrin, heptachlor, HCH and chlordane, which are all regulated by the Rotterdam Convention.46 The last major group of insecticides, synthetic pyrethroids, generally have low mammalian toxicity and are relatively safe for the spray operators during mixing and application.47 However, importing these substances can be very difficult for developing countries, given their limited access to foreign currency. It is estimated, for example, that the use of pyrethroid esters for household spraying for malaria control could cost nine times as much as that of DDT.48