[JURIST] The UN Environment Programme [official website], meeting in Geneva on Saturday, decided to add nine chemicals [press release] to its list of banned chemicals under the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) [official website]. Not all the added chemicals will be banned immediately [Houston Chronicle report], however, as some will need to be phased out over time and others will be permitted in limited use where there are no alternatives currently available for their purpose. The Convention also reached an understanding on the use of DDT [EPA materials], one of the original "dirty dozen" POPs, acknowledging that some countries rely on the chemical to reduce malaria-bearing mosquitoes and other pests. The nine chemicals that have been banned are all proven to cause immune system damage or death in humans, or cause severe developmental problems in infants. Several of the newly-banned chemicals, including lindane [FDA materials] and hexabromobiphenyl, are already no longer widely in use.

The UN Environment Programme is the environmental arm of the UN established in 1972 under the original Stockholm Convention. Its goals [organization profile, PDF] include conserving endangered species, controlling the movement of hazardous wastes, and conserving reversing the depletion of the ozone layer. The Stockholm Convention on POPs was adopted in 2001 and ratified in 2004, and originally banned twelve chemical substances - ten pesticides (including DDT) and two industrial chemical compounds.

[JURIST] An official for the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs [official website] Friday confirmed the government’s intention to appeal a Federal Court ruling [text; JURIST report] directing the government to firmly push for the repatriation of Canadian Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] detainee Omar Khadr [DOD materials, JURIST news archive]. In a brief statement [Toronto Star report] obtained by the Toronto Star, the official emphasized Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s belief that the severity of the crimes allegedly committed by Khadr call for a judicial rather than a political process. Khadr's case has attracted a great deal of international attention due to his status as the only citizen of a Western nation [Human Rights Watch letter] currently being held at Guantanamo Bay, and his status as one of of two detainees being held at the US prison camp for crimes allegedly committed when he was a minor [Human Rights First backgrounder]. Khadr's lawyers have insisted that as signatories to the UN Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict [text], both Canada and the US are prohibited from treating a juvenile soldier as a member of enemy forces.

In last month's ruling, Justice James O'Reilly found that Khadr's rights under section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms [text] were infringed by the Canadian government's refusal to request his return. Section 7 provides that "[e]veryone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice." Khadr has allegedly admitted to throwing a hand grenade that killed a US soldier in Afghanistan and was charged [JURIST reports] in April 2007 with murder, attempted murder, conspiracy, providing material support for terrorism, and spying.