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Since the beginning of the 1990s, the countries of the region, with financial assistance from the international community, have started to co-operate in order to promote the sustainable use of transboundary water resources. The 1992 Bucharest Convention and its Protocols, the 1993 Odessa Declaration and the 1996 Black Sea Strategic Action Programme for the Protection of the Black Sea against Pollution provided the impetus and framework for co-operation among the six Black Sea countries. The Ministries of Environment from the six Black Sea Countries are responsible for the overall implementation, at national level, of the Bucharest Convention and the Black Sea Strategic Action Programme.
To achieve the purposes of the Bucharest Convention the Black Sea Commission was established, with one member from each of the six national governments. The Commission provides a supervisory role over its Permanent Secretariat which, in turn, co-ordinates the activities of the Commission.
The mandate of the BSC is broad and, with time, has been further expanded to include additional activities. The functions of the BSC are defined under Article XVIII of the Bucharest Convention. Existing protocols to the Convention have added some new functions to the already extensive list, or specified further responsibilities. Additional functions have also been entrusted to the Commission by two declarations adopted at regular meetings of Ministers of the Environment of Black Sea states – the 1993 Odessa Declaration and the 2002 Sofia Declaration - as well as by memoranda of understanding and cooperation between the BSC and other international bodies – the ICPDR and the European Environment Agency.
The Permanent Secretariat, which officially started operating in 2000, is supported in implementing the BSC activities by sixteen subsidiary bodies, some of which are adequately funded and other not. This is further discussed in Section 6.
For Black Sea riparian countries, ensuring a robust institutional framework is a key element in the successful protection of the Black Sea. During the last few years some of the Black Sea countries have made substantial progress in improving this framework for environmental protection, supported by major changes in the legal framework. |
