The 12th meeting of the Chemical Review Committee (CRC-12) to the Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent (PIC) Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade adopted decisions on draft guidance documents (DGDs) for two chemicals, a notification of final regulatory action on another, and the proposal for a new Rotterdam Convention listing of a severely hazardous pesticide formulation (SHPF).
16 September 2016: The 12th meeting of the Chemical Review Committee (CRC-12) to the Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent (PIC) Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade adopted decisions on draft guidance documents (DGDs) for two chemicals, a notification of final regulatory action on another, and the proposal for a new Rotterdam Convention listing of a severely hazardous pesticide formulation (SHPF).
The meeting took place from 14-16 September 2016, in Rome, Italy. Participants included CRC members, government and party observers, and NGO representatives.
CRC-12 approved DGDs on carbofuran and on carbosulfan, and forwarded both to the Conference of the Parties (COP) for consideration. The CRC examined notifications of final regulatory action for benzidine submitted by Canada and Jordan, and decided that former meets the criteria set out in Annex II to the Convention, but the latter did not. A second notification from another PIC region meeting the criteria will be needed before the CRC can draft a DGD and recommend benzidine for the PIC procedure. CRC-12 also approved a proposal from Colombia to include carbofuran suspension concentrate at or above 300 g/L as a SHPF listed in Annex III of the Convention.
CRC-12 revisited notifications of final regulatory action on atrazine submitted by the EU and seven African parties that are members of the Sahelian Pesticide Committee, first considered by CRC-11. Noting disagreement about whether the notifications met the Convention’s risk evaluation criterion, the Committee updated decided to defer a decision on this matter until CRC-13, while requesting the notifying countries to provide additional information and clarification so that the Committee could make a decision.
CRC-12 also established an intersessional task group to update the Handbook of the Committee working procedures and policy guidance, known as the ‘CRC Handbook,’ and agreed to make the guidance in the Handbook available to designated national focal points. [IISD RS Meeting Coverage]