The Handbook is published shortly after the Protocol, along with the Vienna Convention, achieved universal participation, by 196 Parties, on 16 September 2009 – the first treaties of any kind in the history of the United Nations system to achieve that aspiration. The universal ratification of the Vienna Convention and the Montreal Protocol is the culmination of more than twenty-two years of efforts by the international community to ensure that the ozone protection treaties achieved global support and implementation. 

For this first issue, we have undertaken to include articles that provide an overview of some potentially positive aspects of interlinkages, and some concerns as they relate to our system of international environmental agreements. We have also invited articles from some of the global implementing agencies and MEAs on the interlinkages that they see in their daily work.

The Handbook contains four sections: (1) an outline of the critical-use process, (2) suggested forms and notes for the submission of critical-use nominations, (3) reporting accounting framework and (4) appendices. The appendices contain provisions of the Montreal Protocol relating to critical-use exemptions for methyl bromide, relevant decisions of the Parties to the Protocol, and extracts from meeting reports of the Parties relevant to critical uses.

This primer is intended to provide members of the Implementation Committee, particularly new members, with a comprehensive understanding of the non-compliance procedure of the Montreal Protocol and the manner in which the Committee has operated over more than 15 years. In that regard, it is important to note that the non-compliance procedure adopted by the Parties consists of only 16 paragraphs and that, like any institution, the Implementation Committee has developed over the course of its existence a mode of efficient operation that, while firmly based on the non-compliance procedure, relies to a considerable extent on custom and precedent.

The 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer is a landmark agreement that has successfully reduced the global production, consumption, and emissions of ozone-depleting substances (ODSs). ODSs are also greenhouse gases that contribute to the radiative forcing of climate change.

The Handbook contains four sections: (1) an outline of the critical-use process, (2) suggested forms and notes for the submission of critical-use nominations, (3) reporting accounting framework and (4) appendices. The appendices contain provisions of the Montreal Protocol relating to critical-use exemptions for methyl bromide, relevant decisions of the Parties to the Protocol, and extracts from meeting reports of the Parties relevant to critical uses.

The Executive Summary contains key summaries from the Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion: 2006, prepared during 2005-2006 by the Scientific Assessment Panel of the U.N. Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.

Since 1991 the publication of the Handbook for the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (1987) has proved to be a valuable reference source for the decisions the Parties have made in the process of developing the ozone regime. The Handbook itself is published in response to the Parties’ decision (made in 1990) requesting the Secretariat to publish and update regularly a Handbook, setting out the Protocol, as adjusted and amended, together with the decisions of the Parties and other relevant material.