Protecting Polar Regions from Persistent Organic Pollutants: Some Remarks in the Light of the 2001 Stockholm Convention

The 2001 Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) is the global treaty that comprehensively addresses the risks posed by these chemical substances, which are toxic, resist degradation and bioaccumalate in animals and humans through the food chain. The Convention aims at protecting the environment and human health from trans-boundary effects of POPs. Is it able to effectively do so, most specifically in Polar Regions? The essay deals with the most relevant legal issues, from the threats to the Arctic indigenous peoples' human rights (right to food and to health), to the content of the obligations posed by the POPs Convention upon contracting states. No doubt that the Convention's approach towards elimination/reduction of POPs is cautious: it could be insufficient to prevent, reduce or reverse transboundary dangerous effects. A further point examined by the author is the operation of the Stockholm Convention as an example of so called "fragmentation" of international law. The relationship of the Convention with the Antarctic legal system and the Arctic accords seem to confirm the 'dictum' of the International Law Commission: no special legal system or 'self-contained regime' can work completely in isolation from the other norms of international law.