Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources: Ukraine demands to exclude Russia from international environmental bodies and agreements

Ukraine calls on the contracting parties to the environmental conventions to suspend 14 international environmental agreements with regard to the occupier, which include the termination of the aggressor state's membership in the governing and advisory bodies of international environmental organizations:

• Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants
• UNECE Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes
• Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora
• Convention on Biological Diversity
• Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer
• UN Convention to Combat Desertification
• Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal
• Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management
• Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, especially as Waterfowl Habitats
• Convention for the Protection of the Black Sea against Pollution
• Convention on the Prohibition of Military or any other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques
• UNESCO Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage
• UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and muspension of Membership in the International Coordinating Council of the UNESCO Man and Biosphere Program.

Under the relevant conventions, the aggressor state at the international level undertook to protect and preserve the environment on the principles of full equality of rights and responsibilities of member states, respect the national sovereignty and independence of the contracting parties, not to interfere in their internal affairs, to comply with international law .

The aggressor grossly violates universal principles and norms of international environmental law, shows disrespect for all participating countries:

• Russian invasion to the Exclusion Zone has led to a loss of control over the Chornobyl Shelter, spent nuclear fuel storage facilities and radioactive waste disposal sites, and has threatened international environmental security as a whole;
• the shelling of the reactor unit and the seizure of the Zaporizhzhya NPP by Russian militants posed a threat to the world's nuclear and radiation safety;
• as a result of the invasion, our natural heritage suffers irreparable damage;
• as of today, more than half of the Ramsar sites in Ukraine are used by Russian aggressors during hostilities against the Ukrainian people. This is primarily land on the coasts of the Azov and Black Seas and in the lower reaches of the Danube and Dnipro.

By carrying out a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the occupier violated international law, human rights, nuclear security and global peace in general. This radically changes the position of each party to these conventions and the obligations arising from such agreements.