Persistent Organic Pollutants and Heavy Metals (Including Mercury) - The Changing Arctic Environment: The Arctic Messenger - page 193

lations, especially women, children, and, through them, future generations”. Article 3 pro-
hibits “primary mercury mining not being conducted prior to the entry into force of the
Convention for that Party, and requires the phase-out within fifteen years of any primary
mining that was being conducted within a Party's territory at the date of entry into force for
it”. The importance of research and environmental and health monitoring was recognized
in a new article introduced late in the negotiations as Article 19. Sadly, as always with this
type of topic, it is a “soft” obligation. Part of the article is devoted to human health and
includes, for example, an interesting clause promoting “the development and implement-
ation of strategies and programmes to identify and protect populations at risk, particularly
vulnerable populations, including science-based health guidelines, targets for mercury ex-
posure reduction and public education”. In Article 21, parties are required “to report to the
COP on measures taken to implement the convention and their effectiveness in meeting the
Convention's objectives”. It was pleasing to see that the negotiators considered that effect-
iveness evaluation is important. This is addressed in Article 22. The text is quite straight-
forward and should avoid many of the complications that arose over interpretation of the
corresponding article in the Stockholm Convention.