Environmental Conventions: Chapter test

With the accession of Timor-Leste on 16 September 2009, the Convention and the Protocol became the first treaties in UN history to achieve universal ratification. South Sudan (2012) and the State of Palestine (2019) joined later, so each has 198 parties as of October 2026. The date chosen, 16 September, is also International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer.

The Vienna Convention (22 March 1985) is a framework convention. Its parties agreed to cooperate in research, systematic observation of the ozone layer and exchange of information, and to take 'appropriate measures', but it set no quantities or dates. Binding cuts in CFCs and halons came two years later in the Montreal Protocol (1987), adopted under the Convention. The Multilateral Fund was created only in 1990 by the London Amendment.

The Convention provides for research and systematic observation (Article 3 and Annex I), exchange of information (Article 4 and Annex II) and the adoption of protocols (Article 8), which is how the Montreal Protocol came about. It contains no fixed timetable or quantity for cutting CFCs; those control measures are in the Protocol and its later amendments and adjustments.

Statement 1 is correct: the Ozone Secretariat, hosted by UNEP at Nairobi, is the secretariat for both the Vienna Convention and the Montreal Protocol and their meetings. Statement 2 is wrong: the Multilateral Fund has its own Fund Secretariat in Montreal, and projects are approved by the Fund's Executive Committee and carried out by implementing agencies.

Statement 1 is correct: the Convention has its own Conference of the Parties, which meets about every three years, usually together with the Protocol's annual Meeting of the Parties, but the two are legally distinct. Statement 2 is wrong: the Convention entered into force on 22 September 1988, before the Protocol (1 January 1989). Statement 3 is correct under Article 16 of the Convention, which is why both treaties have the same 198 parties.

India deposited its instrument of ratification of the Nagoya Protocol on 9 October 2012, while COP11 was being held in Hyderabad (8–19 October 2012). The Biological Diversity (Amendment) Act, 2023 recites in its preamble that India is a Party to the Nagoya Protocol, and the amendment aligned Indian law with Nagoya ideas such as compliance and monitoring. Statements 1 and 2 are correct. Statement 3 is wrong on chronology: the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 received assent on 5 February 2003 to give effect to the CBD of 1992. The Nagoya Protocol was adopted only in 2010, so a 2002 law could not have been enacted to implement it.

Both statements are correct. By Decision III/21 (1996) the CBD Conference of the Parties recognised the Ramsar Convention as the lead implementation partner on wetlands, and later CBD decisions recall this role. The Ramsar Secretariat is engaged in the SDG process as co-custodian with UNEP of indicator 6.6.1 (change in the extent of water-related ecosystems over time), as noted in the MoEFCC backgrounder for World Wetlands Day 2023.

Section 3 lists who needs the NBA's prior approval: foreigners, non-resident Indians, and certain bodies. The original Act of 2002 covered an Indian-registered body with 'any non-Indian participation in its share capital or management', so even a small foreign shareholding brought an Indian company into the approval regime. The 2023 amendment substituted a narrower test: a body incorporated or registered in India that is controlled by a foreigner within the meaning of section 2(27) of the Companies Act, 2013, which looks at the right to appoint a majority of directors or to control management or policy decisions. Other Indian entities follow the lighter route of prior intimation to the State Biodiversity Board.