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Amnesty international and greenpeace netherlands
Chapter 9
of foreseeable risks to the right to health in another state, and take action if they have the legal and technical capacity to do so. As the previous sections of this chapter have shown, the Dutch authorities not only had sufficient information to indicate that the material being carried by the Probo Koala was hazardous and that exposure to the material could trigger negative health impacts, they had legal obligations and the capacity to act to stop the material leaving their territory in order to prevent harm to health of people outside their territory. Both the Basel and MARPOL conventions specifically deal with waste that is being moved across territorial jurisdictions by ship.
obligations under the Basel and MARPOL regimes to prevent the export and transit of hazardous waste, the other states also bear responsibility for their failure to comply with their international obligations in relation to Article 12 of the ICESCR. The Netherlands, therefore, has breached its obligation under Article 12 of the ICESCR to protect the right to health in other countries.
After the dumping, there was intense public debate in the Netherlands, involving various officials and agencies. Officials and representatives from agencies involved in the decision-making in Amsterdam in July 2006 engaged in this public debate.
The overriding concern that underpins MARPOL, the Basel Convention, and EU and Dutch law on both ships’ waste and movement of waste, is the prevention of harm to the environment and human health due to improper disposal of waste. Despite the lack of certainty about which laws applied, the Dutch authorities acted in complete disregard of this objective. Regardless of any confusion, this core objective should have prompted more action. International and European law on waste control and management, including both Basel and MARPOL regimes, are premised on action by states other than the state where waste may ultimately be delivered. If sole responsibility for the harmful impacts of toxic waste dumping are seen as resting only with the state where delivery occurs or where the impacts are felt, then the central rationale for international law in this area would be eroded. The government of Côte d’Ivoire bears responsiblity for the violations of the right to health of the people of Côte d’Ivoire because of its failures to comply with its obligation to enforce laws to prevent the import of hazardous waste into the country. However, as these violations of the right to health resulted from the forseeable failure of one or more states to discharge their legal Top LEFT: Lodewijk Asscher, assistant mayor for Port Affairs in Amsterdam and Marijke Vos, assistant mayor for Environment, Human Resources, Public Space and Green in Amsterdam. © ANP/EVERT ELZINGA Bottom left: Karla Peijs, minister of Transport. © ANP/SUZANNE VAN DE KERK