Centre for Environmental Rights – Advancing Environmental Rights in South Africa

On 13 October 2020, the Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment gave notice of her intention to publish Regulations for the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for the import and export of certain hazardous chemicals and pesticides, in terms of section 25(3) of the National Environmental Management Act 107 of 1998.

Members of the public were invited to submit comments on these draft Regulations, within thirty days of publication of the notice in the Government Gazette (i.e. by  13 November 2020) to the address provided in the Gazette.

These Regulations apply to importers and exporters of the chemicals listed in Annexure I to the Regulations.

The purpose of these Regulations is to:

• outline the Prior Infrormed Consent (PIC) procedure for the chemicals listed in Annexure I to these Regulations for obtaining and exchanging information between countries regarding certain hazardous chemicals, including pesticides and industrial chemicals that have been banned or severely restricted for human health, animal health and/or environmental reasons;
• promote shared responsibility and cooperative efforts in the international movement of chemicals listed in Annexure I to these Regulations in order to protect human health, animal health and/or the environment from potential harm; and
• contribute to the environmentally sound use of the chemicals listed in Annexure I to these Regulations, by facilitating information exchange about their characteristics, by providing for a national decision-making process on their import and export and by disseminating these decisions to other countries.