It also recommended that UNEP convene, together with other relevant international organizations, an intergovernmental negotiating committee with a mandate to prepare an international legally binding agreement for implementing international action, beginning with the 12 specified POPs and taking the working groups conclusions and recommendations into account. The working group recommended that an expert group be established at the first meeting of the intergovernmental negotiating committee to develop expeditiously science-based criteria and a procedure for identifying additional POPs as candidates for future international action. Finally, several recommendations were made to improve development of and access to information on a wide range of topics related to the 12 specified POPs and to their alternatives. The UNEP GC agreed to convene, by early 1998, an intergovernmental negotiating committee to develop a global legally binding agreement and requested UNEP to undertake immediate action on POPs in support of national and regional efforts to reduce risks to human health and the environment. It is expected that a similar positive response to the working group report will be forthcoming at the May 1997 meeting of the World Health Assembly.
POPs is short for persistent organic pllutants.
These substances were also among the 11 critical pollutants recommended for priority action by the International Joint Commissions Great Lakes Water Quality Board in 1985.