Since the 1970s, demands have been made, not least from African states and environmental non-governmental organizations, to prevent ‘toxic dumping’ of hazardous substances from the global north in developing countries. Spurred by much-publicized cases of hazardous substances being exported from developed to developing states with catastrophic health and environmental effects, legal frameworks addressing different forms of hazardous exports have been put in place. This development has been characterized by conflicts and inconsistencies both between and within groups of developed and developing states. Some actors have been fervent in opposing export of products or substances that are banned or largely unwanted in developed states to the global south. Others have described such policies, in particular when they involve complete bans, as paternalistic and as depriving states in the global south of their sovereignty. The chapter explores how these perspectives have played out in the development of legal responses and how current legal regimes balance sovereign decision-making, economic interests, and environmental and health protection in a policy area fraught with power imbalances and colonial legacies.