ABSTRACT

Cross-media pollution, or the transfer of pollutants from one environmental medium to another, is a growing international problem that long escaped attention because treaties and the institutions to implement them were devised usually to protect only one element of the environment—air, land, or water. A more holistic, ecosystem approach is needed for so complex an issue, and this article suggests the river basin as an areal unit for that approach. After analyzing the functions of existing international basin commissions, the article concludes that if their functions were appropriately expanded these entities would be eminently suitable to deal with cross-media pollution, thereby dispensing with the need to create new institutions to manage this old but newly discovered problem.