Since 2002, Japan has been laying the groundwork for a plan to liberalize and promote toxic waste trade among Asian countries in violation of an international treaty, claims a hazardous waste watchdog group based in Seattle. The Seattle-based Basel Action Network, BAN, filed a formal complaint against Japan on Monday concerning what BAN calls Japan's "intent to create toxic waste colonies around Asia." BAN says that Japan is utilizing bilateral trade agreements concluded with Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Thailand that eliminate tariffs on hazardous wastes such as pharmaceutical wastes and waste oils containing PCBs to promote trade in these substances. "The manner in which these trade agreements are being used we believe constitutes non-compliance with the Basel Convention," BAN said...The Basel Convention has two pillars. First, it regulates the transboundary movements of hazardous and other wastes. Second, the Convention obliges its Parties to ensure that such wastes are managed and disposed of in an environmentally sound manner...Takeshi Yasuma of Citizens Against Chemicals Pollution in Tokyo said, "Unfortunately these Japanese free trade agreements like JPEPA in the Philippines or JTEPA in Thailand reinforce an immoral strategy to reassert a waste colonialism which the Basel Convention had hoped to consign to the history books"...more...

Philippine environmentalists protested outside the Japanese embassy in Manila today to denounce a free trade deal they claim could lead to the dumping of toxic waste here. The protesters, led by Greenpeace volunteers and local toxic waste campaigners, unfurled a banner saying ''Asia is not Japan's waste colony.'' They said they would send a petition to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe urging him to review the Japan-Philippine Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA). They claimed that the JPEPA would legalise the entry of hazardous waste into the Philippines that goes against the global convention on shipments of toxic materials. ''We oppose the insertion of toxic items, many of which are globally banned or restricted, in Japan's economic agreements with neighbouring countries,'' said Manny Calonzo of the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, a group that promotes eco-friendly waste policies.

The JPEPA was signed by Arroyo and the then Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi on the sidelines of a summit in Helsinki in September. Tokyo says the deal was a first because it included provisions on the movement of labour while removing tariffs on more than 90 percent of goods traded between the two countries. Greenpeace and other environmentalists however warned that the deal involved provisions allowing shipment of waste across borders. The Philippine Senate has yet to ratify the treaty, which came under heavy legislative scrutiny last year.mThe Japanese government meanwhile has said it would observe global conventions on hazardous waste, but has not denied the Greenpeace claim outright.

Japan's prime minister has agreed to write a pledge that his country will not dump toxic waste in the Philippines, to speed up the implementation of a bilateral free trade pact, a Philippine official said Thursday. Japan and the Philippines signed the free trade agreement last year, but it has been held up by the Philippine Senate amid concerns it will permit Tokyo to export hazardous waste. During a meeting with President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in Tokyo on Wednesday, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he was ready to submit in writing a promise that Japan will not export toxic waste to the Philippines, Arroyo's spokesman Ignacio Bunye said in a statement faxed to news organizations from Tokyo. "It will be more assuring to put it in a document and we will be ready to move in that direction," Bunye quoted Abe as saying...more...

Mulboyne wrote:IHT: Japan promises it won't export toxic waste to Philippines, official says