Joining Forces: How MEAs Drive Compliance and Enforcement Against Illegal Traffic
Monday, 8 December 2025
15:00–16:15 EAT
Event Tent (Helipad), UNEP headquarters, Nairobi, Kenya
Download the flyer here.
Watch side event live here.
Many multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) set out trade control provisions as a key approach to achieve their goals. The illegal trade of environmentally sensitive substances and commodities – ranging from hazardous substances, such as ozone-depleting substances and mercury, to hazardous wastes and endangered species poses serious threats to health, ecosystems, economies and security, and undermines individual and collective efforts.
MEAs with trade-control provisions play a central role in regulating international trade, including preventing and combatting illegal traffic. Strengthening compliance and enforcement of trade-related provisions of MEAs is therefore essential to advancing the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and delivering sustainable solutions for a resilient planet, in line with the theme of UNEA-7.
This side event sets out to highlight the critical contribution of MEAs and their compliance mechanisms in assisting Parties to ensure that international trade occurs in an environmentally sustainable and sound manner and that illegal trade is effectively prevented, detected, and addressed.
The event will also emphasize the role of enforcement agencies, particularly customs and border control authorities, as a first line of defence against illegal traffic, and showcase emerging tools by the MEAs secretariats and relevant international organizations for monitoring, detection, and enforcement at borders.
Event moderated by:
Ivonne Higuero, Secretary-General, Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora
Opening remarks:
- Megumi Seki Nakamura, Executive Secretary, Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer and for the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer
- Rolph Payet, Executive Secretary, Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions
Panel discussion:
- Sonja Dünnwald, Member of the Basel Convention’s Implementation and Compliance Committee
- Pablo Moscoso, Senior Legal Officer, Ozone Secretariat
- Haruko Okusu, Chief of Governing Bodies Unit, CITES Secretariat
- Alvin Gachie, Green Customs Initiative, UNEP
- Amy Fraenkel, Executive Secretary, Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals
Questions and Responses Session
Closing remarks:
Monika Stankiewicz, Executive Secretary, Minamata Convention on Mercury
Organized by:
- Ozone Secretariat
- Secretariat of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm conventions
- UNEP Green Customs Initiative
- Secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora
- Secretariat of the Minamata Convention on Mercury
More on UNEA-7 programme