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Introduction

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Welcome to the seventh edition of the Handbook for the Montreal Protocol.

Unlike the last (sixth) edition of the Handbook for the International Treaties for the Protection of the Ozone Layer, which was published by combining the information on the Vienna Convention and the Montreal Protocol, this seventh edition contains only information on the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. We have decided to publish this edition separately in order to accommodate the substantial number of decisions of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol that were taken from the fifteenth to seventeenth Meetings of the Parties between 2003 and 2005, which up until now have only been available from the reports of the Meetings.

In updating the information for this edition, no changes have been made to the text of the Montreal Protocol treaty itself or the summary of control measures under the Montreal Protocol in Section 1. Section 2, on decisions of the Meetings of the Parties, has been updated to include the decisions adopted at the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth meetings of the Parties, as well as the decisions of the two extraordinary meetings of the Parties.

Also updated is Section 3, which covers destruction procedures for ozone-depleting substances based on the decisions of the Parties, the summary of essential-use exemptions approved by the Meetings of the Parties, the Assessment Panels (especially their terms of reference), the Multilateral Fund (with respect to the terms of reference of the Executive Committee, by incorporating the amendment to paragraph 2, based on decision XVI/38 of the Meeting of the Parties), Finance (by including the latest UN scale of assessments adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2005), and declarations by the Parties. No changes have been made to the sub-section on the non-compliance procedure, but a new sub-section has been added summarising critical-use exemptions for methyl bromide.

Section 4, on the Rules of Procedure, remains unaltered. The information on the evolution of the Montreal Protocol, which previously appeared in Section 4 of the sixth edition of the Handbook is now available from the Secretariat’s website at ozone.unep.org. This valuable historical information on the original 1987 Montreal Protocol and the separate adjustments and amendments to the Protocol that were adopted by the Meetings of the Parties in 1990, 1992, 1995, 1997 and 1999, may be accessed under the Montreal Protocol sub-section within the Treaties and Ratification section of the website.

The Secretariat welcomes any suggestions for any further improvement of the format of this Handbook in the future - especially in respect of the expanding volume of information that has to be updated periodically and put together in a single volume.

Marco Gonzalez
Executive Secretary, Ozone Secretariat
United Nations Environment Programme

Previous

Next

Sections

The Montreal Protocol

Decisions

Annexes

Rules of Procedure

Sources of Further Information

General Index