An extraordinary session of the meeting of the Parties took place on 21 May 2003 in Kyiv. The Meeting adopted the new Protocol on Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers to the Aarhus Convention. Following the adoption of the Protocol, a resolution of Signatories was adopted setting out the priorities for work pending the entry into force of the Protocol.

During the meeting, Ministers and Heads of delegations of the Netherlands, Georgia, France, Belarus, Serbia and Montenegro, Canada and European ECO Forum made keynote speeches and interventions.

The Meeting of the Parties also agreed on some changes in the composition of the Bureau of the Meeting of the Parties and welcomed the offer of Kazakhstan to host the second ordinary meeting of the Parties.

The Meeting of the Parties was followed by a signing ceremony of the Protocol and the two other ECE Protocols, adopted during the Conference, the Protocol on Strategic Environmental Assessment to the Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context (Espoo Convention); and the joint Protocol on civil liability to the Convention on the Transboundary Effects of Industrial Accidents and the Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes.

Thirty-six States and the European Community have signed the Protocol: Armenia, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, the Republic of Moldova, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom.