In 1972, delegates to the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment witnessed Japanese junior high school student Shinobu Sakamoto, disabled as the result of methylmercury poisoning in utero. The United Nations Environment Programme (UN Environment, previously UNEP) was established shortly thereafter.[4] UN Environment has been actively engaged in bringing the science of mercury poisoning to policy implementation. In 2001, the Executive Director of UN Environment was invited by its Governing Council to undertake a global assessment of mercury and its compounds, including the chemistry and health effects, sources, long-range transport, as well as prevention and control technologies relating to mercury.