The Bonn Agreement is the mechanism by which the North Sea States, and the European Community (the Contracting Parties), work together:

• to help each other in combating pollution in the North Sea Area from maritime disasters and chronic pollution from ships and offshore installations;
• to carry out surveillance as an aid to detecting and combating pollution at sea.

The North Sea States are Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Ireland will shortly join the Bonn Agreement and the North Sea Area will be enlarged to include Irish waters.

Bonn – a brief sets out more of the background. The experience gained through the Bonn Agreement over the past thirty-six years has been codified in the Bonn Agreement Counter-Pollution Manual. This sets out:

• the agreed General Strategy;
• the Specific Policies agreed on many issues;
• the agreed approaches on Response operations;
• the arrangements for joint Exercises;
• the agreed arrangements for Reporting;
• the agreed approaches on Surveillance.

The summary records of Meetings under the Bonn Agreement are available on this website. (Documents for discussion are available only to the Contracting Parties, since they represent work in progress).

Publications by the Bonn Agreement can be downloaded or obtained from the Secretariat.