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Bosnia and Herzegovina joins the UNECE Industrial Accidents Convention

The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) welcomes the accession of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the Convention on the Transboundary Effects of Industrial Accidents on 20 February 2013. The Convention enters into force for a State on the ninetieth day after the deposit of the State’s instrument of accession; Bosnia and Herzegovina will thus become the forty-first Party to the Convention as of 21 May 2013.


With the accession of Bosnia and Herzegovina, all States in South-Eastern Europe now benefit from the Convention's legal framework. Neighbouring States will welcome Bosnia and Herzegovina's membership, as it will promote cooperation in the Balkans and the sharing of information on hazardous installations in border areas. The Convention's requirement that other Parties be notified about hazardous activities that can affect them should lead to the easing of the tensions that are sometimes caused by uncertainty about the risks that these activities pose to nearby communities.


UNECE hopes that Bosnia and Herzegovina will also join its neighbouring States in benefitting from activities under the Convention's Assistance Programme, which seeks to build capacity of countries to prevent, prepare for and mitigate the transboundary effects of industrial accidents, should they occur. The most recent Assistance Programme activity, a three-day training session on on-site inspections of hazardous installations, was held in October 2012 in Split, Croatia.


For further information, please visit http://www.unece.org/env/teia/welcome.html or contact Nicholas Bonvoisin ([email protected]).


 


Note to editors


The 1992 UNECE Convention on the Transboundary Effects of Industrial Accidents is designed to protect people and the environment against industrial accidents. It helps its Parties to prevent industrial accidents that can have transboundary effects and to prepare for, and respond to, accidents if they occur. The Convention also promotes active international cooperation between countries before, during and after an industrial accident, as well as — in the longer term — cooperation on research and development and in the sharing of information and technology.


The Convention aims at preventing accidents from occurring, reducing their frequency and severity and mitigating their effects if they do occur. Bosnia and Herzegovina will join 40 other Parties to the Convention, which include, besides the European Union and 25 of its 27 member States (Ireland and Malta are not Parties): Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Croatia, Kazakhstan, Monaco, Montenegro, Norway, Republic of Moldova, Russian Federation, Serbia, Switzerland and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.


In 2004, the Convention’s Conference of the Parties adopted an Assistance Programme to support the countries from Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia and South-Eastern Europe in implementing the Convention.

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United Nations Economic Commission for Europe

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