Click to expand Image Herbicide is sprayed on a soybean field in the Cerrado plains near Campo Verde, Mato Grosso state, western Brazil. © 2011 Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP via Getty Images Fifteen organizations including Human Rights Watch sent letters to European Union officials and lawmakers this week pressing the European Commission to follow through on its commitments to stop the export of pesticides that are banned in the EU.EU regulators have banned these pesticides within the EU after reviewing evidence that they pose unacceptable risks either to the environment or human health, including being linked to cancer, hormonal conditions, infertility, miscarriage, negative impacts on fetal development, neurological diseases, and death. However, while EU legislators have determined that these chemicals are unsafe for Europeans, EU-based companies continue to manufacture and export those same pesticides primarily to countries in the global south.The European Commission made a commitment in 2020 to end this double standard with plans to propose legislation by the end of 2023. However, almost two years later, progress has halted.Instead, new data published by civil society organizations Public Eye and Unearthed shows that exports have actually increased since the commission made these promises. According to records of export notifications obtained under freedom of information requests, EU countries exported nearly 122,000 metric tons of banned pesticides in 2024, a 50 percent increase from the last reported data in 2018.Three-quarters of the exports of EU-banned pesticides in 2024 went to low- and middle-income countries where regulations to protect against the harm of exposure to these chemicals are often weaker. For example, according to the export notifications, the EU exported nearly 15,000 metric tons of EU-banned pesticides to Brazil in 2024. Human Rights Watch research in Brazil has shown that weak protections against pesticide exposure, such as shrinking buffer zones or inadequate regulatory systems, exacerbate serious health and human rights harms and risks. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has called out this double standard, saying that pesticide companies exert “pressure” on Brazilian lawmakers, contributing to a weaker regulatory environment.Action from the European Commission is long overdue. The commission should urgently publish the results of the impact assessment initiated in 2023 with a clear timeline for next steps and present a legislative proposal before the end of 2025 to prohibit the manufacture and export of pesticides banned in the EU.