ABSTRACT
It is important to ask why the international legal framework on the issue of waste is focused on these two areas of dumping in the high seas and trans-boundary movements of hazardous wastes. Why, for example, are there no international treaties or other instruments regulating the movement and disposal of hazardous or toxic waste material within the land territories and internal waters of States? The main reason for the inability of international law to exert controls over domestic waste movement and disposal activities relates to the perennial issue of a State’s sovereignty under international law. As frequently mentioned elsewhere in this book, the reluctance of States to countenance any constraints upon the exercise of this sovereignty has proved to be a major stumbling block to the progressive development of international law generally, and international environmental law specifically, even where uniform national controls would enhance the overall legal certainty of regimes and promote greater economic efficiency in the provision of waste disposal and transport services. For the position within the EC see the Hazardous Waste Directive 91/689, pp 381 and 396, below, and the EC Regulation on Shipments of Waste 259/93, pp 386 and 398, below.
