in all locations of the mine in which miners come in contact with. The Convention also requires that the working environment is monitored for hazards that can induce disease. Finally, article 5 requires that countries publish statistics on occupational disease (included black lung). Issues with the Convention The goal of the Convention is to create a standard that can be used for any ratifying nations to promote the health and safety of miners. It supports the notion for countries to create the proper agencies to regulate the safety and health of miner's and implement standards. However, many prominent mining countries have yet to ratify the Convention. In addition, many ratifying nations differ in the amount of effort put into the relevant agencies. Currently there are five main developed countries that are prominent in the mining industry. Only two of these five have ratified the Convention (The United States and Germany). There are a number of developing nations that also largely partake in mining. Despite this, only a fraction have signed the Convention. China, the world's leading coal producer, has yet to ratify the Convention. China also has the most dangerous track record of miner's health and safety (based on number of fatalities). Apart from the countries that haven't ratified it, the effectiveness of the Convention relies on the strictness of the government. The ratifying nations are ultimately responsible for creating the relevant agencies and enforcing the standards laid out in the Convention. European Union strengthening of the Convention In 2008, the European Commission released a Recommendation for all EU members to ratify recent conventions from the ILO, including Convention 176. Similar to the United States, many EU member States have laws already in place that would match or in some cases surpass the laws laid out in the Convention. However, the Recommendations laid out by the Commission did not just ask for the ratification of the various conventions. The Commission recognized the notion that governments can ratify, yet not enforce the Convention fully. Therefore, it asked for the conventions rules to be strengthened and made certain that a supervisory system was in place to monitor the effectiveness of the conventions enforcement. The Recommendation was released despite opposition from some EU nations claiming that the funding to the ILO should be lowered or in some cases dropped. Ukrainian project related to the Convention The ILO project in Ukraine was implemented between