Helsinki Convention: preventing pollution in international watercourses and lakes

KEY POINTS

• The convention provides a legal framework within which 2 or more parties may cooperate to:
  • prevent and control water pollution across national frontiers;
  • ensure the reasonable and impartial use of transboundary waters.
• Parties must take all appropriate transboundary water measures to:
  • prevent, control and reduce actual or potential pollution;
  • ensure ecologically reliable water management, conservation of resources and environmental protection, including restoration of ecosystems, where necessary;
  • ensure the reasonable and impartial use of resources.
• Parties must:
  • apply the precautionary principle, i.e. not fail to act because science has not yet fully proved a causal link between particular substances and pollution;
  • apply the polluter pays principle, i.e. the party responsible for causing pollution pays the prevention, control and reduction costs;
  • manage water resources so that future generations' needs are not harmed;
  • establish programmes to monitor transboundary water;
  • cooperate with each other, especially on information exchange and research to develop effective techniques to prevent, control and reduce transboundary pollution;
  • support international efforts to draw up rules, criteria and procedures for determining responsibility and liability for any pollution.
• The measures must:
  • be taken at source, where possible;
  • not directly or indirectly transfer pollution to other parts of the environment.
• Agreements between 2 or more parties may cover issues such as:
  • compilation of data and inventories;
  • creation of joint monitoring programmes;
  • adoption of emission limits for waste water and joint water-quality objectives;
  • introduction of warning and alarm procedures;
  • use of environmental impact assessments.
• Parties to an agreement must:
  • provide each other any help when requested;
  • ensure information on the state of transboundary water and any measures taken are available to the public.
• In 2003, the convention was amended to allow non-European countries to join. The amendment entered into force on 6 February 2013 and Decision 2013/790/EU marked its acceptance. Since March 2016 all UN Member States can accede to it.