Issues in Brief, No. 28, October 2013

The Minamata Convention and the Future of Mercury Abatement

By Henrik Selin
October 2013 (8 Pages)
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In this Issues in Brief, Pardee Faculty Fellow Henrik Selin examines the new Minamata Convention on Mercury, a global agreement intended to “protect human health and the environment from anthropogenic emissions and releases of mercury and mercury compounds.” Selin argues that the new convention is “more legally and politically important than environmentally significant.”  To achieve truly meaningful reductions in mercury releases to the environment and threats to human health, he says collaborative measures must be enacted across global, regional, national, and local scales of governance, with support from inter-governmental organizations, non-governmental organizations and industry associations.

Henrik Selin is a Pardee Faculty Fellow and Associate Professor of International Relations at Boston University. He conducts research and teaches classes on global and regional politics and policymaking on environment and sustainable development. He is the author of more than 40 academic journal articles, books, and book chapters on global environmental governance and policy issues.