The Green Customs Guide to Multilateral Environmental Agreements was designed to promote sustainable trade and encourage customs and border control officers to take on a proactive role in protecting the environment. The guide provides customs and border control officers, as well as anyone interested, with useful information and guidance about relevant trade-related multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs), thus facilitating legitimate trade in environmentally sensitive items while preventing illicit trade in such items and contributing to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.
This updated version of the guide reflects several new developments that have taken place in recent years, such as the entry into force of the Minamata Convention on Mercury, the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, and the plastic wastes amendments to the Basel Convention. The guide also considers the gender perspective of the daily work of customs and border control officers.
The Green Customs Initiative, launched in 2004, is a partnership of international entities cooperating to prevent the illegal trade in environmentally sensitive commodities and substances and to facilitate their legal trade. Its objective is to enhance the capacity of customs and other relevant border control officers to monitor and facilitate the legal trade and to detect and prevent illegal trade in environmentally sensitive commodities covered by relevant trade-related MEAs and the Chemical Weapons Convention. In addition to UNEP, several MEAs secretariats and OPCW, Interpol and the World Customs Organization are also partners.
