the amount of e-waste generated has been increasing in recent years, as have imports/exports of e-waste for the purpose of recycling and disposal. The projects under the Basel Convention have aimed for the environmentally-sound management of this e-waste. In November of 2005, a workshop, as a kickoff to these projects, was held in Tokyo under the joint sponsorship primarily by the Ministry of the Environment of Japan and the Secretariat of the Basel Convention. This workshop featured discussions on information sharing and country-specific projects pertaining to e-waste and resulted in an agreement on an action plan for project implementation.

##### 2.3.2. Approaches toward the prevention of illegal imports/exports of circulative resources

Next, approaches to prevent illegal imports and exports of such circulative resources including hazardous waste are required. Such approaches include five factors: 1) improved efforts to ascertain and analyze international trends involving circulative resources, 2) clarification of regulated goods, 3) improvement of traceability, 4) enhancement of networks for the prevention of illegal imports and exports and 5) protection of Japan's intellectual property rights. Japan will thus need to make an international contribution by implementing policy measures as mentioned below.

For example, in order to ascertain and analyze recent international trends surrounding circulative resources, one possibility is the study of more effective frameworks that can identify used appliances and circulative resources for recycling by developing international goods codes under the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System currently used in import/export management.

Moreover, activities to ensure appropriate importing and exporting of individual goods are required. When clarifying regulated goods, one specific activity could be to formulate guidelines for narrowing gaps in criteria among countries on items regulated under the Basel Convention. And, in order to increase traceability, it will be necessary to study the sharing of electronic data on movement, storage, recycling, and disposal of circulative resources among East Asian countries as well as the construction of a system for region-wide management.

Japan proposed the “Asian Network for the Prevention of the Illegal Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes” in 2005 and is currently promoting efforts to prevent illegal imports and exports in collaboration with Asian countries and others. In the future, it will be necessary to enhance and expand these approaches further. At the same time, Japan will need to raise Japanese businesses' awareness regarding the problem of encroachment of intellectual property rights so that Japan's highly advanced waste management and recycling technologies are not illegally infringed upon overseas.

##### 2.3.3. Approaches to facilitate imports and exports of circulative resources

Given the fact that differences exist with regard to how each country views hazardous waste identified under the Basel Convention, approaches toward facilitating the import and export of circulative resources could include the construction of an international data-