BRS 2025: IPEN Side Events

During the BRS COPs, IPEN will co-host the following side events:

Gender, Toxics Exposures & the Right to a Clean, Safe, Healthy, and Sustainable Environment

This side event on Tuesday, April 29 from 18:15-19:45 CEST in the CICG Room 14 and online will center around the recent report of the Special Rapporteur on Toxics and Human rights showing how hazardous chemicals, often originating from the petrochemical, extractive and agricultural industries, cause serious adverse impacts on human rights, with gender- and sex-related health harms. These include infertility, miscarriage, stillbirth, premature birth or low birthweight, cancers and metabolic disorders. The aim is to highlight the importance of considering sex- and gender-related factors in implementation of the BRS Conventions, including actions by Parties to prevent POPs generating or deepening gendered injustices Learn more at tiny.cc/GEN29Apr25Gender.

 

 

Spotlighting Approaches for a More Protective Stockholm Convention, With a Focus on Children’s Health

This side event on Thursday, May 1 from 18:15-19:45 CEST in the CICG Room 11-12 and online will explore the special vulnerabilities to children from exposures to POPs and other toxic chemicals. For the 2025 Stockholm Convention COP, the POPs Review Committee has recommended two large groups of chemicals and one pesticide for listing in Annex A for global elimination: medium-chain chlorinated paraffins (MCCPs); long-chain perfluorocarboxylic acids (LC-PFCAs), their salts and related compounds; and chlorpyrifos. All of these POPs are linked to endocrine disruption, and chlorpyrifos damages the developing brain in children. The side event aims to increase awareness of the serious impact of POPs and other chemicals on children’s health, examine how the scientific evidence shows that effective international measures are urgently needed, and highlight the importance of increased use of grouping approaches to enhance the effectiveness and health protectiveness of the Convention. Learn more at tiny.cc/GEN1May25

 

 

Other Side Events

How Far Have the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions Gone in Advancing a Rights-based Approach and Environmental Justice?

IPEN Steering Committee member Aileen Lucero will be a panel member for this discussion on Monday, April 28, 18:15–19:45 CEST in CICG, Room 2 and online on strengthening a human rights-based approach to the implementation of the BRS Conventions. Populations in vulnerable situations bear a disproportionate burden of the human rights consequences of exposure to pollution and hazardous substances. Human rights law imposes specific duties on States to prevent, protect and remediate environmental harm, and the BRS Conventions are key tools to advance protection of human health and the environment against harmful effects of hazardous chemicals and wastes.