Radioactive Waste Disposal at Sea: Public Ideas ... - IMO

90 Chapter 6
first two meetings looked for particular areas for future international cooperation
on pollution control. The UN General Assembly resolution to
“identify those aspects of it that can only, or at best be solved through international
cooperation and agreement” led the Preparatory Committee in
their search for parts of environmental problems that were joint (interview,
Peter S. Thacher, May 2, 1991). The committee focused on areas outside
national authority and areas under national authority of concern to most
governments.
The secretariat tried to convince governments that a number of pollutants
and ways in which pollution occurred could, because of their nature,
be solved only, or best, through international cooperation. Among these
pollutants of “broad international significance” (as they were called in
“basic papers” that were produced by specialized agencies of the United
Nations and presented during the preparatory process), three types were
identified: those whose effects were felt beyond the national jurisdictions in
which the pollutants were released to the environment, those that affected
international trade, and those that occurred in many states. 3 Global aspects
of marine pollution were emphasized in separate basic papers. 4 The secretariat
hoped to demonstrate that there were particular pollutants that, from
a global perspective, should be controlled. The oceans, the stratosphere,
and Antarctica seemed strong candidates for the first category, while maintenance
and restoration of soils and conservation seemed strong candidates
for the third category. However, protection of the marine environment
attracted by far the most attention as an area where it was hoped action
could be undertaken in Stockholm. The secretariat then took the initiative
to convene an international working group on marine pollution, officially
named the Intergovernmental Working Group on Marine Pollution
(IWGMP), to prepare action in this particular field.
Not all governments saw ocean dumping as a global environmental problem,
however. A number of governments were in fact not concerned about
ocean dumping. Only in those countries where environmentalism had
gained a foothold, namely developed countries and especially the United
States, did ocean dumping cause concern. It was in the United States, where
prophecies of environmental catastrophes were a peculiar characteristic of
the ecology debate as well as a favorite theme of the ecology elite, that the
“dying oceans” idea first gained political importance and ocean dumping
was first seen as a global environmental problem. A few months before the