Convention on the Transboundary Effects on Industrial Accidents
Convention of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) on the Transboundary Effects on Industrial Accidents, called Industrial Accidents Convention, was drawn up in Helsinki on 17 March 1992. Poland signed this Convention on 18 March 1992 and ratified it on 8 September 2003. The content of the document was published in Journal of Laws of 2004 (No 129 item 1352).
The Industrial Accidents Convention regulates issues related to major on-land accidents, excluding nuclear accidents and accidents in the military facilities areas. It covers the following issues:
- prevention of industrial accidents,
- ensuring preparedness for accident with transboundary effects,
- liquidation of the effects of the aforementioned incidents,
- reporting on the occurrence of major accidents with transboundary effects,
- granting mutual assistance in case of major accidents with transboundary effects.
Convention concerns cooperation of the neighbouring countries in the aforementioned fields.
In accordance with Article 271b of the Act of 27 April 2001, Environmental Protection Law, Chief Inspector of Environmental Protection is competent to implement Minister’s of the Environment tasks related to:
- prevention of major accidents,
- transboundary effects of the industrial accidents,
- accidental pollution of boundary waters.
Therefore, Chief Inspector of Environmental Protection is competent to implement provisions of the Convention on the Transboundary Effects on Industrial Accidents.
By implementation of the provisions of this Convention, Chief Inspectorate of Environmental Protection has been notified as a contact point for the purpose of the exchange of information on the occurrence of the industrial accident with transboundary effects.
For more details on the Convention on the Transboundary Effects on Industrial Accidents see UNECE website: http://www.unece.org/env/teia/welcome.htm.