30 March – 3 April 2009

CODEX - Codex Committee on General Principles (25th Session), Paris, France

The following is the Summary and Conclusions from the report of this meeting.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Matters for adoption by the Commission:

• The Committee agreed to forward to the Commission the:
  • Proposed Draft Revised Code of Ethics for International Trade in Foods at Step 5 with a recommendation to omit Steps 6 and 7 and to adopt them at Step 8 (para 43, Appendix II).
  • Proposed amendment to the Guidelines to Chairpersons of Codex Committees and Ad Hoc Intergovernmental Task Forces (para 87(d), Appendix III).
  • Proposed Amendment to the Terms of Reference of the Committee on General Principles (para 145, Appendix IV).
• The Committee endorsed the nutritional risk analysis principles provided by the CCNFSDU and recommended their adoption by the Commission (para 10).
• The Committee endorsed two proposals (criteria approach: amendments and a new section and consequential amendment) from the Committee on Methods of Analysis and Sampling.

Matters for action by the Commission:

• To further debate on the length of reports and inclusion of names of delegations (paras 12-19).
• To reflect on the usefulness of having a study on introducing qualified majority voting on the adoption of standards, analyzing advantages and disadvantages implied by such system (para 90).
• The Committee agreed a number of actions related to the facilitation of consensus but remained divided on the need for a definition of consensus (para 87). The Commission is invited to advise the CCGP how to move forward on this issue.
• To endorse the confirmation that the full freedom was given under the current Terms of Reference of FAO/WHO Coordinating Committees to issue regional opinions on all themes under discussion in Codex of strategic importance to the region concerned and to promote the adoption of regional positions on strategic subjects, and therefore there was no need to modify the Terms of Reference (para 103).
• The Committee agreed the editorial inclusion of an information footnote to the fourth paragraph of the Statements of Principle Concerning the Role of Science in the Codex Decision-Making Process and the Extent to which Other Factors are Taken into Account indicating that the acceptance procedure had been abolished in 2005 (para 111).

Other matters of interest to the Commission:

• The Secretariat will prepare a draft review of risk analysis policies and distribute it through a Circular Letter asking for comments, in order to prepare a revised document for consideration by the next session of the Committee (para 98).
• The Committee agreed that the points made in the document on new definitions of risk analysis should be borne in mind in the ongoing and further work of the Commission as it relates to risk analysis, and also agreed that there was no need to continue work on this document (para 117).
• The Committee discussed the data provided by the secretariat on the participation of developing countries and the proposals to improve the situation to the Commission (paras 118-140).
• The Committee agreed that the Codex Secretariat should approach the OIE Secretariat and prepare a discussion paper on the possible development of joint standards between Codex and OIE, addressing all relevant procedural and other issues, as well as implications, for consideration by its next session.(para 153).