The Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic (the “OSPAR Convention”) was opened for signature at the Ministerial Meeting of the Oslo and Paris Commissions in Paris on 22 September 1992.

The Convention has been signed and ratified by all of the Contracting Parties to the original Oslo or Paris Conventions (Belgium, Denmark, the European Community, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) and by Luxembourg and Switzerland.

The OSPAR Convention entered into force on 25 March 1998. It replaces the Oslo and Paris Conventions, but Decisions, Recommendations and all other agreements adopted under those Conventions will continue to be applicable, unaltered in their legal nature, unless they are terminated by new measures adopted under the 1992 OSPAR Convention.

The first Ministerial Meeting of the OSPAR Commission at Sintra, Portugal, in 1998 adopted Annex V to the Convention, to extend the cooperation of the Contracting Parties to cover all human activities that might adversely affect the marine environment of the North East Atlantic. Nevertheless, programmes and measures cannot be adopted under the Convention on questions relating to fisheries management.

In 2000, to fulfil obligations under Annex IV to the OSPAR Convention, the OSPAR Commission published the first comprehensive Quality Status Report on the quality of the marine environment of the North-East Atlantic. This was supported by five reports on the different parts of the OSPAR maritime area – the Arctic, the Greater North Sea, the Celtic Seas, the Bay of Biscay/Golfe de Gascogne and Iberian waters, and the Wider Atlantic.

	Convention
	Background
	Quality Status Reports
	Area map

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