Selin to Represent Pardee Center as Expert on Minamata Convention on Mercury Committee

Henrik Selin, an Associate Professor at the Pardee School of Global Studies and a Faculty Associate at the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, has been selected as an expert for the newly-formed Minamata Convention on Mercury effectiveness evaluation committee, representing the Pardee Center, which is an observer organization of the Convention. The committee will be made up of experts from government, NGOs, and academia. Prof. Selin was selected as one of the experts representing civil society based on his extensive work in international environmental governance and the management of hazardous substances.

The Minamata Convention parties decided to establish the committee at its meeting in September 2017, with the goal of developing elements of future effectiveness evaluations for the first time.

“The work of the group will have a major impact on future political decisions as well as the content of the first effectiveness evaluation, which in turn will be critical to efforts to evaluate the effectiveness of the Minamata Convention for the purpose of strengthening the Minamata Convention over time,” said Prof. Selin.

The committee’s first meeting will take place in Ottawa in early March, and it will report back at the Minamata Convention conference of the parties in November.

Prof. Selin is also the lead author of an article recently published in the journal Ambio exploring the ways in which researchers from the natural sciences, social sciences, and engineering can more effectively communicate and mobilize in support of mercury abatement. The article, titled “Linking science and policy to support the implementation of the Minamata Convention on Mercury,” was published as part of a group of four synthesis papers resulting from the 13th International Conference on Mercury as a Global Pollutant (ICMGP) held in Providence, Rhode Island, in July 2017.