Book Reviews 1

REVIEW
10.1177/0486613403254563 Book Reviews
Review of Radical Political Economics / XXX XXX

Toxic Exports: The Transfer of Hazardous Wastes from Rich to Poor Countries
Jennifer Clapp; Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001, 178 pp., $29.95 (hardback),
ISBN: 0-8014-3887-X.

This book summarizes significant parts of the growing body of literature on the poorly
understood subject of the detritus from globalized production. In an era when greenhouse
gases and global warming have become themes for acrimonious charges of environmental
irresponsibility, the more mundane issues of irresponsible behavior with regard to
“on-the-ground” pollution and waste disposal may seem downright pedestrian. Environ-
mental groups and industrial organizations, however, considered them of sufficient impor-
tance to have dedicated considerable resources to negotiating the Basel Convention on the
Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal. Even the UN Environ-
ment Program’s (UNEP’s) quite staid Web page (http://www.unep.ch/basel/) evokes the
outrage that made ratification relatively easy in 1989: “Searching for cheaper ways to get rid
of the wastes, ‘toxic traders’ began shipping hazardous waste to developing countries and to
Eastern Europe.” Jennifer Clapp’s treatise describes more than a decade of negotiations of
the Convention and subsequent extensions as well the resulting decisions for its imple-
mentation. Again the UNEP paints a frightening picture of the prevailing abuses: “uncon-
trolled movement and dumping of hazardous wastes, including incidents of illegal dump-
ing in developing nations by companies from developed countries.” Clapp offers enough
evidence to convince all but the most die-hard apologist of corporate self-regulation that
there is a definite need for regulation of the work process and its impacts on workers and the
environment.
For readers of the RRPE, however, Clapp’s efforts to examine the impact of the normal
process of capital accumulation on workers and the environment may be of greater interest.
She moves us toward a political ecology analysis of direct foreign investment in hazardous
and polluting industries, including market-based and voluntary efforts to promote clean
production. Her analysis suggests that a detailed examination of changing investment pat-
terns should give pause to those who are sanguine about the possibilities of industry polic-
ing itself or of the host countries in the South to adequately regulate foreign productive in-
vestments.
Although there is little that is new for an expert in matters of the environmental impacts
of production, the book is useful because it brings together a history and the beginnings of
an analysis that should be helpful for professionals and teachers seeking a more systematic
understanding of the process of waste generation in general and hazardous wastes in partic-
ular. Clapp’s critical reference to the economic analyses on foreign direct investment docu-
ments the increase in spending on pollution abatement, confirming the lack of evidence to
support the hypothesis that polluting firms from Organization for Economic Cooperaton
and Development (OECD) countries are moving to the South. I was disappointed that she
does not criticize these “mainstream” arguments for the existence of an “environmental
Kuznets curve,” conclusions that are at direct odds with the main theses of this book.
Strangely, the author does not identify the authors and the documents themselves as having
been produced by the World Bank project “New Ideas for Pollution Prevention”; the Bank
has become a significant source of intellectual and material support for this academic work.
2 Review of Radical Political Economics / XXX XXX

In this section, a broader and perhaps more rigorous examination of the analyses by the eco-
nomics profession, in general, and the ecological economics community, in particular,
would have been welcome. In particular, the now quite common analyses of “dematerializa-
tion” in the richer European economies ignores the transfer of resource- and energy-inten-
sive parts of the production process to the third world and the relocation of poorly paid
workers into inadequate living quarters that further exacerbate the degradation of these eco-
systems.
Clapp’s analysis clearly demonstrates that even when treaties are signed and regula-
tions are promulgated, the problems persist. In the case of the 1983 La Paz Agreement, man-
dating maquiladoras to return toxic wastes to the country where the raw materials origi-
nated, the evidence clearly demonstrates that even the record keeping by responsible
authorities in Mexico and the United States is deficient; substantial volumes of hazardous
wastes are never returned and “there are hundreds of potentially toxic waste dumps along
the border” (116). On a more general level, she concludes, “New regulations to stop one
form of hazard transfer are soon circumvented either by opening up of new channels
through which hazards can be relocated or through a rewriting of the rules” (151). The most
recent twist in the international commerce has been to relabel the wastes as “recyclable”
materials being processed for recovery. The examples offered in the text serve as reminders
that even though the Basel Convention has effectively contributed to a more responsible
handling of hazardous wastes, there are still tremendous incentives for unethical individuals
and desperate firms to violate international norms and national legislation.
Clapp demonstrates that the movement of hazardous industries and production pro-
cesses to countries with weaker regulatory frameworks has become common. One of the
most egregious cases on a global scale is the chlorine industry. The phaseout of chloro-
flourocarbon (CFC) production in the wealthier countries so threatened the industry with
disruption that they compensated with aggressive expansion in the less industrialized coun-
tries, introducing polyvinyl chloride (PVC) widely. Neither the industry nor the host coun-
tries were prepared to ensure the correct disposal of the waste streams from the new plants,
leading to uncontrolled releases of dioxins and furans, as well as uncounted chemicals that
had adverse effects on workers’ health from exposure to toxic substances during produc-
tion. Mercury, chromium, and radioactive wastes are among the more notorious of indus-
trial inputs that also have been identified as poisons generated by industries relocating to
poorer nations. She does not absolve local enterprises from bearing part of the blame; but
since they are much smaller than their transnational competitors, their impact on the total
environmental burden is correspondingly much smaller.
But Clapp’s most acerbic analysis is saved for industry itself. She argues that “the focus
on market-based and voluntary initiatives has resulted in weak mechanisms and little truly
clean technology transfers to developing countries because certain features of the global
economy, particularly financial globalization, dampen incentives for transfer of clean tech-
nology.” At the same time, putting these efforts in the hands of industry has contributed to
the “privatization of environmental governance” whereby environmental nongovernmental
organizations (NGOs) and developing countries are largely left out of the decision-making
process (127).
The implementation of the International Organization for Standardization’s ISO 14000
environmental management standards is perhaps the most far reaching of the voluntary
codes of activity. Her critique offers a summary of some of the most disturbing aspects of
 Book Reviews 3

this approach, which focuses on management practices established by the firm itself on the
basis of international guidelines rather than performance standards. Most troubling, how-
ever, is how industry is pushing for the approach to become a substitute for domestic regula-
tion, arguing that an ISO 14000 enterprise should be exempted from domestic compliance
procedures. This would, in effect, not only transfer standard setting to private industry but
would also obviate the need for compliance with international agreements like the Basel
Convention, which are not incorporated into the ISO system.
This industry-led approach also has the effect of de-emphasizing the introduction of
clean production technologies in favor of those that clean up toxic emissions after they have
been produced (end-of-the-pipe technologies). Like waste minimization, discussion of this
issue has been shortchanged, and although a number of United Nations (United Nations In-
dustrial Development Organization [UNIDO] and UNEP) agencies have begun to imple-
ment their own programs in the area, they suffer from insufficient funding and low profiles,
thus reducing their impact on industry. I was surprised, however, that Clapp did not mention
the progressive academic programs, like that of the Toxics Use Reduction Institute associ-
ated with the “Work Environment Policy” Program at the University of Massachusetts at
Lowell, where good political economy analysis is combined with joint programs in industry
to introduce new technologies for clean production.
Before closing, however, I would like to register a complaint about the book’s format.
Because of the author’s choice to include footnotes with complete bibliographic references
and the traditional use of “op. cit.” without adding a comprehensive bibliography at the end
of the text, this reader was frequently frustrated by the difficulty in identifying the most im-
portant sources. In light of the potential importance of this book as a model of political
scholarship, I would also have liked a systematic introduction to the materials available on
the World Wide Web as well as to the different civil society groups involved in the various
campaigns mentioned in the text. I was also disappointed about the absence of any mention
of non-toxics-related organizations and mobilizations that are directly related to abuses in
the workplace or to the effects of the mishandling of toxic substances, such as the
Maquiladora Heath and Safety Network. Finally, I was surprised that no mention was made
of another treaty, the Convention against the Hostile Uses of the Environment, that raises
many of the same issues.
Jennifer Clapp’s book offers a good example of political scholarship, combining seri-
ous analysis of a growing problem with a critical evaluation of political activism. Her care-
ful evaluation of the protagonistic role of Greenpeace in building alliances with regional po-
litical blocs in the third world and the emergence of the Basel Action Network as an
effective watchdog group to strengthen the commitment to the principles of the Basel Con-
vention offers an excellent introduction to the importance of NGOs as a countervailing
force against capital in the new globalized society. As a pedagogic tool, the book also offers
a fine example of how the correct identification of a pressing problem of international politi-
cal economy and a careful handling of the available information can contribute to broaden-
ing our understanding of the tasks ahead of us as political economists.

David Barkin
Universidad Autónoma
Metropolitana-Xochimilco,
Mexico City, Mexico
4 Review of Radical Political Economics / XXX XXX

E-mail address:
barkin@cueyatl.uam.mx
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