On 11 July 1950 (only in German and French), Germany, France, Luxemburg, the Netherlands and Switzerland founded the ICPR in order to analyse the pollution of the Rhine, to recommend water protection measures, to harmonize monitoring and analysis methods and to exchange monitoring data.
Today, international cooperation in environment and water protection is considered to be obvious. However, the history of the ICPR was, for a long time, marked by the challenges of domestic and foreign policy caused by the changing history of Western Europe since the middle of the 19th century.
The success of international cooperation which the states in the Rhine catchment obtained after long negotiations and the legally binding Conventions made the ICPR to an example to follow in environment and water protection and serves as a guideline for several organisations.
Conventions
• Convention on the International Commission for the Protection of the Rhine against Pollution (Berne, 29 April 1963) (only in German, French and Dutch)
• Convention on the Protection of the Rhine against Chemical Pollution (Bonn, 3 December 1976) (only in German and French)
• Convention on the Protection of the Rhine against Pollution with Chlorides (Bonn, 3 December 1976) (only in German and French)
• Additional Agreement concerning the Convention on the International Commission for the Protection of the Rhine against Pollution signed in Berne on 29 April 1963 (Bonn, 3 December 1976) (only in German and French)
• Additional Protocol to the Chlorides Convention (25 September 1991 - only in German, French and Dutch)
• Convention on the Protection of the Rhine (Berne, 12 April 1999)