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Foreword

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The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer stands as one of the most successful examples of international cooperation to tackle a major global environmental threat. Since the negotiation of the Protocol in 1987, its Parties have continued to adapt the regime they established in response to scientific evidence and technological developments. The production and consumption of entire groups of harmful ozone-depleting chemicals has been successfully phased out in developed countries, and the same process is now well under way in developing countries. Overall, almost ninety five per cent of all ozone-depleting substances have been phased out. This is a remarkable effort by the Parties to the Montreal Protocol.

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. Since that time, the Protocol has been adjusted five times and amended four times. These have been integrated into a single text which is included in this Handbook.

The Protocol also includes all the decisions of the Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol that have taken place since 1989. The number of decisions taken at each of these Meetings - covering policy, legal, non-compliance, science and technology, and other technical issues associated with the implementation of and compliance with the Protocol - initially averaged twenty every year. However, in recent years, with the increased number of issues of non-compliance with which the Parties have had to deal, the number of decisions adopted by each Meeting has averaged over forty. All these decisions are incorporated in this latest issue of the Handbook, along with other relevant information up to 2005.

Over the years the Handbook has proved to be valuable reference material for the Parties to the Montreal Protocol. It is my hope that this latest edition of the Handbook, which I commend to readers, will prove just as useful as repository of information on the implementation of the Montreal Protocol.

Achim Steiner
Executive Director
United Nations Environment Programme

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Sections

The Montreal Protocol

Decisions

Annexes

Rules of Procedure

Sources of Further Information

General Index