A/HRC/9/22 page 5 15. The Special Rapporteur will report on his joint mission to Côte d’Ivoire and the Netherlands to the Human Rights Council in his annual report for 2009. B. Statements and interventions 16. The Special Rapporteur conveyed a statement to the third Meeting of the Parties to the Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (the Aarhus Convention) held from 8 to 14 June 2008 in Riga. The Special Rapporteur would like to thank the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe for the opportunity to contribute to the meeting. In his statement, the Special Rapporteur stressed that Governments should stop considering themselves as controllers of information, but as custodians for the public rather than for the State. He urged that information on environmental issues should be held in trust for the public interest, instead of the interest of those who control the State. The Special Rapporteur reiterated that public access to information and the right to be informed are imperative for the prevention of human rights violations and the protection of the environment. He called on more States to accede to the Aarhus Convention, which correctly recognizes the importance of the right to information and public participation in environmental matters. II. NINTH CONFERENCE OF PARTIES TO THE BASEL CONVENTION ON THE CONTROL OF TRANSBOUNDARY MOVEMENTS OF HAZARDOUS WASTES AND THEIR DISPOSAL 17. The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal (the Basel Convention) was adopted in 1989 and entered into force on 5 May 1992. It was created to address concerns over the management, disposal and transboundary movement of the estimated 400 million tons of hazardous wastes that are produced worldwide each year. The guiding principles of the Convention are that transboundary movements of hazardous wastes should be reduced to a minimum; that hazardous wastes should be managed in an environmentally sound manner; that they should be treated and disposed of as close as possible to their source of generation; and minimized at the source. There are currently 170 parties to the Convention.1 18. In June 2008, the Special Rapporteur was invited by the Secretariat of the Basel Convention to address the high-level segment during the ninth meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP9) to the Basel Convention. The theme of COP9 was “Waste Management for Human Health and Livelihood”. 19. The aim of choosing this theme for the meeting was not to advocate or launch new activities under the Basel Convention, but to establish the close link of the Convention with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by highlighting how environmentally sound waste management contributes in concrete ways to sustainable development. 1 See http://www.basel.int/ratif/convention.htm.