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consistent willingness to press for the retention of such 

 standards in international forums. The environmental coalition 

 believes that the containment concept is appropriate, and its 

 retention should be championed by the U.S. as the IAEA review 

 goes forward. Concerning the definition of de minimus quantities 

 of radioactivity, efforts to define such quantities should be 

 addressed in the context of the ongoing review of the entire 

 definition for radioactive wastes. Any action by the Parties to 

 the Convention on that definition should be postponed for further 

 review in combination with IAEA's ongoing analysis of the 

 definition of high-level radioactive wastes that are unsuitable 

 for dumping. 



D. Regional Initiatives 

 The London Dumping Convention is viewed by the Parties as 

 the umbrella global agreement under which region-specific 

 agreements are encouraged. The United States is currently a 

 party to the development of two marine-focused regional 

 conventions in the Caribbean and in the South Pacific. While the 

 evolving Caribbean Regional Seas Action Plan has not yet 

 formulated any specific protocols related to dumping, this issue 

 is under active consideration in the current negotiations 

 surrounding the development of a Draft Convention for the 

 Protection and Development of the Natural Resources and 

 Environment of the South Pacific Regions and draft protocols on 

 dumping and on oil spills. Both the draft Convention (Article 

 10) and the draft protocol on dumping propose that no radioactive 

 wastes be dumped in the Convention area. Several participating 



