Effectiveness of Chemical- and Hazardous-Waste-Based MEAs in Sustaining Life and Land: Analysis of Implementing Legislations and Practice in Ethiopia

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

General comments

The manuscript aims to analyze Chemical and Hazardous Wastes (CHW’s) pollution-oriented Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) implementation in Ethiopia by adopting a comparative method. India and China were used as comparison countries. Authors concludes that the domestic laws are flawed, exhibiting inconsistency, fragmentation, and inadequacy to realize the international law obligation of the state. Also, the state's conduct does not balance the economic interests of investors and the state with that of indigenous people's health, livelihood, and the environment. Authors recommend legal rectification and practical compliance with international law to realize the sustainable viability of human health and environmental media.

The importance and relevance of the issues discussed in this article is beyond doubt. However, the general logic of the manuscript and the methods used raise many questions. Another weak point of the manuscript is the scientific novelty; in their current version it is hard to find the novelty both in the abstract and the "Conclusions" section.

The following comments should be addressed, and the paper needs a major revision before publication decision.

 

Major comments

(1) The structure of the manuscript makes it difficult for the reader to understand what the main idea of ​​this manuscript is. Neither in the title, nor in the abstract, nor in the conclusion does any complete and clearly new thought sound. The authors made a comparative analysis of the CHW-related laws of Ethiopia, China and India. After reading the article, I still have questions:

Why did the authors do this work (knowledge gap)? What new knowledge did they gain (novelty)? Who can benefit from this new knowledge (relevance)?

(2) The choice of China and India as a comparative country is not justified in the manuscript. Why did the authors choose these countries?

(3) The choice of an open pit gold mine as the subject of an emissions study is also not very clear. It is well known that open pit mining is accompanied by large emissions of pollutants. But at the same time, it is important to remember that for the local population, and often for the whole country, such mines are practically the only way to maintain economic well-being. Ethiopia has been in a state of civil war for many years, so they have no high-tech production, low income from agriculture, and minerals are the most important part of their economy. In such a situation in the country, the implementation of international standards will certainly have low efficiency. It seems to me that taking into account the economic situation in which the country is located is very important for discussing the efficacy of implementation of international standards for CHW emissions. China and India are in much more favourable economic conditions than Ethiopia. And from this point of view, the correctness of comparing these three countries is doubtful. In any case, this factor (economy) must be taken into account when comparing countries, and this factor is not taken into account in this version of the manuscript.

(4) The Conclusions section is more similar to the Discussion section in that it provides references to the literature and discusses additional issues. While the "Conclusions" section usually briefly lists the conclusions drawn from this study. Please, reformulate this section.

 

Minor comments

Lines 30 – 31. ‘It brings ecological and topographical changes on land; result in fauna and flora extinction, and be a source of conflict despite their economic importance.’  This sentence looks uncoordinated.

Line 52. Please, double check the reference.

Line 410. “china”

Author Response

Dear reviewer, we thank you for your comments and suggestions. We addressed point by point according to your suggestions. We attached the details here with.

Regards!!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper was revised according to the journal rules. The topic was focused on the treating of CHW to sustain life and land.

Few revisions are required and they are reported below:

• please try to reduce acronyms from the abstract
• add a nomenclature list with all variables and parameters used
• a graphical abstract could be added to the manuscript
• table 1 should be integrated with more than one reference, please revise it
• I suggest to add a subchapter or a little portion i the conclusion section about the possible future works implementation

Author Response

Dear reviewer, we thank you for your comments and suggestions. We addressed point by point according to your suggestions. We attached the details herewith.

Regards!!

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I have no further comments.