technologies, technologies and products with less or no emission of ozone-depleting substances, processing and combustion techniques, new methods of waste treatment including recycling and disposal, and low- and non-waste technologies.
21. The participating States will exchange appropriate information in specific fields of engineering industries and automation. They will do this on the basis of mutual advantage for potential partners, who will decide independently on the areas of co-operation and with due respect for bilateral and multilateral agreements. To this end they will, inter alia, develop statistics in fields of engineering industries of commercial importance.
22. In the context of their scientific and technological co-operation, the participating States will consider the possibility of encouraging the development and use of alternatives to animal experimentation, including for product testing.
23. In the important field of nuclear energy, the participating States recognize that, while individual States should assume full responsibility for the safety of their own nuclear facilities, nuclear safety requires closer international co-operation, especially within the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). They note that it is essential to maintain the highest possible safety standards in the management and operation of nuclear facilities. They therefore support the work done within the IAEA in developing basic safety principles, and urge all States to use the revised Nuclear Safety Standards NUSS codes- as a basis for regulating nuclear safety practices. They also recall the need further to improve the efficiency of the existing system of nuclear liability.
Environment
24. Recognizing the need for preventive action, the participating States will strengthen their co-operation and intensify efforts aimed at protecting and improving the environment, bearing in mind the need to maintain and restore the ecological balance in air, water and soil. They will do this by, inter alia, developing their internal legislation and their international commitments, and by applying the best available means, taking into account levels of development as well as economic and technical constraints. They underline the importance of the Regional Strategy for Environmental Protection and Rational Use of Natural Resources in ECE Member Countries Covering the Period up to the Year 2000 and Beyond. They welcome, and will take due account of, the report of the World Commission on Environment and Development and the Environmental Perspective to the Year 2000 and Beyond, as well as the work already undertaken within the competent international fora, in particular within the framework of the 1979 Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (hereafter called "the Convention").
25. The participating States are convinced of the need for timely and effective reductions of sulphur emissions or their transboundary fluxes. They call upon Contracting Parties and Signatories to the Convention to become parties to the Protocol on the reduction of sulphur emissions or their transboundary fluxes by at least 30 per cent. They recommend that further steps to reduce sulphur emissions, in line with the objectives of the Protocol, be taken by those States which are not parties to the Protocol, and that those States where this goal is already accomplished continue to control their emissions. Recalling that the said Protocol provides for reductions of sulphur emissions at the latest by 1993, they will work within the framework of the Convention for the elaboration at an early date of an arrangement for further reductions of sulphur emissions beyond the level established by the Protocol.
26. The participating States consider that control and reduction of nitrogen oxide emissions, or their transboundary fluxes, deserve high priority in their pollution abatement programmes. They welcome the elaboration and adoption of the Protocol on Control of Nitrogen Oxide Emissions.
27. Furthermore, they recognize the need to develop, within the framework of the Convention, arrangements to reduce emissions of other relevant air pollutants such as hydrocarbons and those producing photochemical oxidants. They will strengthen their co-operation accordingly, including by collecting and processing the necessary information.
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