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Home » Press Releases » 2013 » Global mercury treaty adopted, mentions vulnerability of Arctic ecosystems and indigenous communities

Global mercury treaty adopted, mentions vulnerability of Arctic ecosystems and indigenous communities

22 January, 2013 – Geneva, Switzerland/Ottawa, Canada

After a week with long negotiations that lasted throughout several nights, ICC participants were pleased to see the adoption of a global mercury treaty (the ‘Minamata Convention on Mercury’) at the 5th Intergovernmental Negotiation Committee (INC) of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) on Saturday, January 19th 2013, at 7 am in Geneva, Switzerland. This treaty consists of a mixture of legally binding and voluntary measures and will attempt to regulate mercury sources (including mercury emissions to air and releases to water and land, artisanal small-scale gold mining, mercury-containing products and processes involving mercury use), trade with mercury, storage, health aspects, and various other issues.

The Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC) was represented both as an independent observer and as part of the Canadian delegation, to ensure that Inuit concerns on mercury contamination are being raised.

Parnuna Egede from ICC Greenland asks countries to reduce mercury emissions in her intervention to the plenary of the 5th Intergovernmental Negotiation Committee. Picture: Eva Kruemmel

ICC also worked with other indigenous groups present at the meeting which together built the “Global Indigenous Peoples Caucus”, and fought for the inclusion and recognition of Indigenous peoples in the treaty text. Indigenous peoples are particularly vulnerable to health effects from mercury because their traditional diets often consist of fish and/or top marine predators that can contain high levels of mercury.

Inuit Circumpolar Council – Canada Office

75 Albert Street, Suite 1001, Ottawa, ON K1P 5E7
P: 613.563.2642 F: 613.565.3089icc@inuitcircumpolar.com / www.inuitcircumpolar.com

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Canada, Nepal and the European Union (EU) submitted text for inclusion in the preambular text of the treaty that highlighted indigenous concerns and the Canadian and EU proposal further referenced the vulnerability of the Arctic. However, while Canada’s text outlined the vulnerability of “indigenous peoples” (a term in accordance with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which was adopted in 2007), the EU was not able to support the language. Particularly EU delegations from France and the United Kingdom (UK) pointed to their domestic laws which would prevent them to sign on to a legally-binding treaty that included text recognizing “indigenous peoples”, and only supported language highlighting “indigenous communities”. This is despite the fact that both France and UK have endorsed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

When the preamble was passed during the negotiations, Bolivia noted for the record that the concept and terminology of “peoples” was internationally accepted, and that it would be rather worrying if the use of “communities” instead of “peoples” would set a precedent in future international agreements.

“After fighting more than twenty years for the international recognition of our human rights, this is certainly a major set-back.”, said Duane Smith, ICC Canada’s President. “But we are encouraged by the acknowledgment of ‘indigenous peoples’ during the negotiations from Canada, the United States and many other countries, including several countries from the EU. Hopefully France and UK will take this as an inducement to take measures that will enable them to recognize Indigenous peoples in future legally-binding global treaties.”

Overall, the mercury treaty is expected to result in the reduction of mercury levels in the environment globally, however many years will pass before the first measures have to be implemented. “The treaty will only require reductions in atmospheric mercury emissions 5 to 10 years after the mercury treaty comes into force – possibly only by 2020 for new coal-fired power plants, or by 2025 for existing power plants, as one example.”, explains Parnuna Egede from ICC Greenland. “This means that several hundreds of plants can be built without the inclusion of mercury-reducing technologies for many years to come. It will probably be decades before we can measure declines of mercury levels in the environment based on actions resulting from the mercury treaty.”

Nevertheless, the fact that over 140 countries were able to agree on measures to reduce mercury in the environment has to be viewed as a success. “It is our hope that countries will take domestic measures to reduce mercury emissions long before the mercury treaty comes into force.” Duane Smith said. “Several Inuit regions currently have consumption advisories in effect due to high mercury levels in some traditional food items, and the mercury in our foods is largely due to global mercury emissions, for example from coal-fired power plants in Asia. Consumption advisories are not an acceptable way for us to avoid health effects from mercury. Our environment needs to be healthy in order for us to be healthy. ”

The Minamata Convention on Mercury will be open for signature at a Ministerial meeting in Japan in October this year.

For more information:
Yvonne Moorhouse, ICC Canada YMoorhouse@inuitcircumpolar.com Ph: +613. 563. 2642

Eva Kruemmel, ICC Canada EKruemmel@inuitcircumpolar.com Ph: +613. 563. 2642

The Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC) is an Indigenous Peoples’ Organization (IPO), founded in 1977 to promote and celebrate the unity of 180,000 Inuit from Alaska (USA), Canada, Greenland, and Chukotka (Russia). ICC works to promote Inuit rights, safeguard the Arctic environment, and protect and promote the Inuit way of life. In regard to climate change, we believe that it is crucial for world leaders and governments to recognize, respect and fully implement the human rights of Inuit and all other Indigenous peoples across the globe.