Ending the traffic in toxic waste.

• Position: Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal - Focus on Survival of the Planet

After 18 months of arduous negotiations under UNEP auspices, more than 100 countries, meeting from 20 to 22 March in Basel, Switzerland: unanimously adopted a treaty restricting shipments and dumping of hazardous waste across borders. The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Waste and Their Disposal is expected to enter into force by the middle of 1990, as soon as it is ratified by 20 countries. It is the first step in ending what UNEP Executive Director Mostafa K. Tolba, the treaty's architect, called "the commerce in poison".

The treaty was signed on the spot by 35 States and the European Economic Community-an exceptionally high number. Half were developing countries.

Illegal hazardous waste dumping has been targeted by many as an uncontrolled, often shady, multi-billion dollar business. Both developing and developed countries view it with increasing alarm, particularly after "the scandalous dumping of the past year, especially in Africa and the Caribbean", Mr. Tolba said.

The new treaty represents the second major international environmental agreement concluded in 18 months with UNEP guidance-the first being the ozone protection Protocol adopted in Montreal in September 1987.

The African countries at the Basel meeting signed the Conference's Final Act, but put off a decision to sign the treaty until the OAU Head of State summit meeting, set for june 1989.

Treaty critics, among them African and other developing countries and environmental groups, stress that the document fails to ban all transboundary...