E-Waste & the Regulatory Commons: A Proposal for the Decentralization of International Environmental Regulation

Brooklyn Journal of International Law, Dec 2014

By Jing Jin, Published on 01/01/14

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E-Waste & the Regulatory Commons: A Proposal for the Decentralization of International Environmental Regulation

Brooklyn Journal of International Law E-Waste & the Regulator y Commons: A Proposal for the Decentralization of International Environmental Regulation Jing Jin Follow this and additional works at: https://brooklynworks.brooklaw.edu/bjil - Article 9 Idreds of laborers, including young children, pick apart n an isolated junkyard at the edges of Lagos, Nigeria, hunremnants of discarded electronics to recover valuable minerals such as gold and copper. Unaware of the dangerous carcinogens and harmful chemicals that abound in the electronic waste (“ewaste”),1 these workers often burn the e-waste in open air and further expose themselves to extremely toxic materials.2 Today, increasing demand for the latest technologies drives the fastest growing, and potentially most dangerous, waste stream worldwide.3 Developing countries are the most common destinations 1. Electronic components contain small quantities of precious metals such as gold and copper. JIM PUCKETT ET AL., EXPORTING HARM: THE HIGH-TECH TRASHING OF ASIA 8 (Jim Puckett & Ted Smith eds., 2002), available at http://www.ban.org/E-waste/technotrashfinalcomp.pdf. 2. Studies indicate that the bodies of those who live near these e-waste dumps have the highest amount of cancer-causing dioxins in the world. See Janet K.Y. Chan et al., Body Loadings and Health Risk Assessment of Polychlorinated Dibenzo-p-dioxins and Dibenzofurans at an Intensive Electronic Waste Recycling Site in China, 41 ENVTL. SCI. & TECH. 7668, 7672 (2007) (noting that breast milk of women who worked in electronic waste recycling centers had more than two times the concentration of dioxins than do women working in a control site and that their placentas had nearly three times the concentration of dioxin than do women at the control site). 3. Christian Purefoy, Serious Contamination Threat from Africa’s Mounting E-Waste, CNN NEWS (Apr. 9, 2009), http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/04/08/africa.recycling.computers.ew aste/index.html. More recent projections by the United Nations’ Solving the E-Waste Problem Initiative (“StEP”) estimate global e-waste volumes to grow by 33% in the next four years, making e-waste the world’s fastest growing waste stream. John Vidal, Toxic “E-Waste” Dumped in Poor Nations, says United Nations, THE GUARDIAN (Dec. 14, 2013), http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/dec/14/toxic-ewasteillegal-dumping-developing-countries. for these wastes.4 For instance, the United Nations Environment Programme (“UNEP”)5 reports that African countries are quickly becoming the final destination for the world’s e-waste.6 Usually this waste is broken apart and burned by young boys in countries like China.7 A 2007 study found that blood lead levels of children in Guiyu, China were 50% higher than the maximum safe exposure set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States.8 Electronics represent the world’s largest and fastest growing manufacturing industry,9 and the exponentially growing pace of consumer demand for new gadgets fuels the growth in ewaste. This waste includes electronic devices such as computers, mobile phones, television sets, entertainment devices, and refrigerators.10 Additionally, any components of these products, 4. Vidal, supra note 3. 5. The UNEP was created in 1972 at the United Nations Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment to serve as the “focal point for environmental action and coordination” among United Nations members. Institutional and Financial Arrangements for International Environmental Cooperation, G.A. Res. 2997, pt. II, para. 1, U.N. GAOR, 27th Sess., Supp. No. 30, U.N. Doc. A/8730, at 43 (Dec. 15, 1972). “The UNEP promote[s] international cooperation in the field of the environment.” United Nations Conference on Environment and Development: Framework Convention on Climate Change, May 9, 1992, 31 I.L.M. 849, Agenda 21 – Chapter 38, part 22, 388. 6. James Simpson, Toxics Alert: Africa Emerging as E-Waste Dumping Ground, TOXICS ALERT (Dec. 2006), http://enews.toxicslink.org/newsview.php?id=3 (“According to a study by the Basel Action Network (“BAN”), a minimum of 100,000 used and obsolete computers a month are entering the Nigerian port of Lagos alone.”). 7. Bryan Walsh, E-Waste Not, TIME (Jan. 08, 2009), http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1870485,00.html. 8. U.S. GOV’T ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE, GAO-08-1044, ELECTRONIC WASTE: EPA NEEDS TO BETTER CONTROL HARMFUL U.S. EXPORTS THROUGH STRONGER ENFORCEMENT AND MORE COMPREHENSIVE REGULATION (Aug. 2008), available at http://www.gao.gov/assets/280/279792.pdf. 9. See JIM PUCKETT ET AL., THE DIGITAL DUMP: EXPORTING RE-USE AND ABUSE TO AFRICA 7 (Jim Puckett ed., 2005), available at http://www.ban.org/library/TheDigitalDump.pdf [hereinafter THE DIGITAL DUMP]. BAN produced this film and report to document, and increase awareness of, the harmful effects of e-waste dumping in Africa. 10. Pakistan: Environment: The Dark Side of Digital Waste, THE FR (...truncated)


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Jing Jin. E-Waste & the Regulatory Commons: A Proposal for the Decentralization of International Environmental Regulation, Brooklyn Journal of International Law, 2014, pp. 9, Volume 39, Issue 3,