A/HRC/21/48 Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal and the Rotterdam Convention on Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and for Pesticides in International Trade. 54. In addition to these three conventions, other international agreements and negotiations are relevant to chemicals and waste pollution regionally or globally. The Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP) of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe and its eight protocols are of limited geographic and substantive relevance, and therefore not discussed here.32 Other international instruments for managing chemicals, namely the Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers (PRTRs) and the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM) are discussed separately below. 55. Negotiations are expected to conclude in 2013 on a legally-binding instrument on mercury pollution. It is expected that it will contain provisions on mercury exposure, including supply sources, such as mercury mining and international and domestic distribution; use in products and processes; artisanal and small-scale gold mining; emissions and releases into air, water and land; waste, storage and remediation of contaminated sites. In order to prevent the various human rights impacts of extractive activities due to a range of pollutants, strong and clear legally-binding obligations to reduce exposure to mercury as well as other inorganic pollutants are necessary. However, despite the substantial time and cost of negotiations, draft treaty texts for a legally-binding agreement on mercury do not show the desired willingness on the part of States to address other heavy metals associated with extractive industries that warrant international action, such as lead and cadmium. 56. Parties to the Stockholm, Basel and Rotterdam conventions determine the chemicals covered under the scope of each agreement. However, some chemicals are categorically excluded from particular conventions. For example, the Stockholm Convention only applies to organic (carbon-based) chemicals, and does not cover inorganic elements like elemental mercury (methyl-mercury could theoretically be included), which is produced and released through extractive activities. Cyanide, another common toxic substance associated with extractive industries, is also not within the scope of the Stockholm Convention because it does not meet the bio-accumulation criterion. 57. Exemptions under the Basel Convention include chemicals that are subject to other international controls, radioactive wastes, and discharge from ships, as well as those traded to or from non-State Parties, or depending on a country’s level of development. The Rotterdam Convention, which does not regulate chemicals, but rather establishes a mechanism to exchange information and prior informed consent of States importing hazardous chemicals, does not apply to radioactive materials, wastes and chemicals in quantities not likely to affect human health. The long-range transboundary movement of hazardous chemicals through wind, water or living organisms is not covered by the Basel and Rotterdam conventions. The scope of these conventions is further limited by political realities, such as the refusal to list chrysotile asbestos – the most commonly used form of asbestos, the hazards of which are well-established – as a hazardous substance under the Rotterdam Convention. 58. Additional gaps include the limited number of parties to certain conventions as well as the limited geographic scope of some. Although most States are party to the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm conventions, certain key industrialized countries have not 32 The LRTAP protocol with the most potential relevance to the impacts outlined above is the Aarhus Protocol on Heavy Metals which covers cadmium, lead and mercury; however, it currently applies to stationary sources of atmospheric emission, such as pollution associated with gas flaring. 15