Multilateral Environmental Agreements

Posted in Environment & Natural Resources Management

The main instruments available under international law for countries to collaborate on a broad range of global environmental challenges are international conventions and treaties on environment and natural resources also known as Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs).

MEAs are agreements between states which may take the form of “soft-law”, setting out non legally-binding principles which parties are obligated to consider when taking actions to address a particular environmental issue, or “hard-law” which specify legally-binding actions to be undertaken toward an environmental objective.

Amongst the global environmental issues that MEAs are designed to respond to include: loss of biological diversity, adverse impacts of Climate Change, depletion of the ozone layer, hazardous waste, organic pollutants, marine pollution, trade in endangered species, destruction of wetlands, etc.

The East African Community (EAC) Partner States have committed to making every effort to ensure the effective implementation of Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) signed and ratified by the EAC Partner States, including:

• the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC),

• the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD),

• the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD),

• Ramsar Convention on Wetlands,

• Convention and International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES),

• Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer,

• Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPS), and

• International Tropical Timber Agreement (ITTA).

The EAC Partner States have also committed to strengthening regional cooperation to address the persistent challenges related to sustainable development and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.