WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  G/SPS/GEN/833 
26 March 2008 
 (08-1329) 
Committee on Sanitary a nd Phytosanitary Measures Original:   English 
  
 
SUMMARY OF THE WORK OF  
THE INTERNATIONAL PLANT PROTECTION CONVENTION (IPPC) 
OCTOBER 2007 – FEBRUARY 2008 
 
Communication from the IPPC Secretariat
 
 
 
 The following communication, received on 20 Marc h 2008, is being circulated at the request 
of the IPPC. 
_______________ 
 
 
I. THIRD SESSION OF THE COMMISSION ON PHYTOSANITARY MEASURES 
1. The Third Session of the Commission on Phytosanitary Measures (CPM) will be held on 7-
11 April 2008 in Rome, Italy and is open to all contracting parties of the IPPC.  non-contracting parties (UN members) may attend as observers.  Th ere are over 165 contracting parties to the IPPC. 
2. Items to be discussed at the CPM that will be of particular interest to the WTO SPS 
Committee include: 
• the adoption of the draft ISPM: Establishment of areas of low pest prevalence for fruit flies 
(Tephritidae) ; 
• Procedure and Criteria for Identifying topics for Inclusion in the IPPC Standard Setting Work 
Programme; 
• IPPC Training Material for Pest Risk Analysis; 
• Outcome of the Open-ended Working Group on a Possible IPPC Compliance Mechanism; 
•  Analysis of the Application of the PCE Tool; 
• Development of a CPM Technical Assistance Stra tegy for Phytosanitary Capacity Building;  
and 
• Project-oriented Planning for the Multilateral IPPC Trust Fund. 
 3. The Bureau of the CPM in collaboration with the CPM working group on Strategic Planning 
and Technical Assistance (SPTA) has developed an  Operational Plan for 2008, which describes (and 
costs) the activities to be undertaken in 2008 to  meet the requirements of the 2007-20011 Business 
Plan.  This should enable increased transparency  and accountability of the Secretariat to the CPM. 
4. At its Seventh session in 2005, the Interim Commission on Phytosanitary Measures (ICPM) 
decided that an independent evaluation of the IPPC  funding and structures should be initiated, which 
would include the implications relating to the fu ture transition of the ICPM to the CPM.  The 
evaluation was completed in 2007 and the Eval uation Team presented the report to the FAO 
Programme Committee at its 98
th Session in October 2007.  The 60 plus recommendations have been 
discussed thoroughly by the SPTA who will be making a series of recommendations to the CPM for 
consideration.  Included in the recommendations w ill be the appointment of a full time Secretary to 
the CPM. G/SPS/GEN/833 
Page 2  
 
  II. THE DEVELOPMENT, ADOPTION AND MONITORING OF THE 
IMPLEMENTATION OF ISPMS 
Standards Committee 
 
5. The Standards Committee met in Rome in November 2007 and recommended that the 
following draft ISPMs be submitted to the Third Session of the CPM for adoption: 
• Amendments to ISPM No. 5 ( Glossary of phytosanitary terms ); 
• Establishment of areas of low pest prevalence for fruit flies (Tephritidae); 
• Replacement or reduction of methyl bromide as a phytosanitary measure;  and 
• Methodologies for sampling of consignments. 
 
Expert working groups 
 
6. An expert working group met to revise the following ISPMs: 
• ISPM No. 7 ( Export certification system );  and  
• ISPM No. 12 ( Guidelines for phytosanitary certificates ). 
 
Technical panels  
7. Meetings of Technical Panels since October 2007 included: 
• The Technical Panel on the Glossary (October 2007) reviewed country comments on draft 
standards in relation to new and revised te rms and definitions, continued discussions on 
terminology, further developed the draft supplem ent on terminology of the CBD in relation to 
ISPM No. 5 and finalized work on the annotated glossary of phytosanitary terms. 
• The Technical Panel on Phytosanitary Tr eatments (December 2007) reviewed 16 new 
phytosanitary treatment submissions in the topic areas of irradiation, fruit flies and 
alternatives to methyl bromide for inclusion in ISPM No.15 ( Guidelines for regulating wood 
packaging material in international trade ).  
• The Technical Panel on Pest Free Areas and Systems Approaches for Fruit Flies (December 
2007) met to develop an annex to ISPM No. 26 ( Establishment of pest free areas for fruit 
flies) on fruit fly trapping procedures. 
 
III. INFORMATION EXCHANGE 
The International Phytosanitary Portal 
 
8. Maintaining navigation in the In ternational Phytosanitary Portal (IPP) in English, French, 
Spanish and Arabic is an ongoing challenge due to resources and the need to track the many changes 
that take place. Work on the Chinese transl ation of the navigation text has commenced. 
Capacity-building workshop 
 
9. The IPPC Information Exchange Capacity Build ing Programme was further developed during 
2007 to ensure that countries, through their IPP editor: 
• had a basic understanding of their informa tion exchange obligations under the IPPC;  G/SPS/GEN/833 
 Page 3 
 
 
  • were introduced to the International Phytosan itary Portal (IPP) as the preferred system 
for the exchange of official phytosanitary information;  and 
• were trained to upload and maintain thei r phytosanitary information on the IPP. 
 10. To date, 288 NPPO editors from 135 countries and 18 RPPO editors have been trained 
through ten regional and sub-regi onal IPP training workshops conduc ted up to the end of June 2007. 
All regions have now had the oppor tunity of at least one regional workshop on information exchange 
under the IPPC. As a direct result of these regiona l IPP workshops, there has been a substantial 
increase in the amount of information available throu gh the IPP. The challenge is now to ensure that 
countries maintain and update this information correc tly, and continue to add new information to the 
IPP as it becomes available. Appendix 1 provides a regional summary of the percentage of countries 
that have used the IPP to load informati on related to their IPPC reporting obligations. 
IPPC contact points 
 
11. Table 1 provides a summary of the current status  of IPPC contact points (contracting and non-
contracting parties) and editors for countries and RPPOs.  
Table 1:  Summary of the number of all N PPO contact points, and editors for NPPOs  
and RPPOs 
 
Region Contracting Parties 
(CPs)  Non-CPs  Editors  
 Official 
contact 
point  Unofficial 
contact 
point  Information 
point  CPs and 
Non-CPs  RPPO 
staff  
Africa 38 0 12 62 4 
Asia 18 2 8 41 1 
Europe 41 4 2 46 1 
Latin America and Caribbean 32 1 1 38 8 
Near East 11 4 1 16 0 
North America 2 0 0 3 1 
Southwest Pacific 11 2 3 21 4 
Total 153 13 27 227 18 
Total 166    
 
12. The Secretariat would also like to note the im provement in maintenance and updating of IPPC 
contact point information by some contracting partie s and would like to thank them for these efforts – 
more than 50% of IPPC contact point informati on is updated in a given year. This contributes 
substantially to improving communications with th e Secretariat and between contracting parties.   
IV. THE PROVISION OF DISPU TE SETTLEMENT MECHANISMS 
13. In 2007, the Secretariat received two requests for assistance in dispute settlement. One 
requested was not taken any further but discu ssions about the second dispute are continuing. 
14. The IPPC Dispute settlement Manual is now ava ilable in FAO languages and can be found at 
https://www.ippc.int/id/144307?language=en .  
  G/SPS/GEN/833 
Page 4  
Percentage of Contracting Parties per Region with Reporting Information on the IPP 
 
= ((number of contracting parties in a region with  one or more documents for a reporting category)/ 
(total number of contracting parties in the region)) × 100 
 
  Africa 
( 38 ) Asia 
( 20 ) Europe 
( 45 ) Latin 
America and 
Caribbean 
( 33 ) Near 
East 
( 15 ) North 
America 
( 2 ) Southwest 
Pacific 
( 13 ) 
Reporting obligations               
Description of the NPPO 45 35 42 52 7 100 31 
Legislation 34 35 47 46 20 100 31 
Pest reports 8 5 11 30 0 0 31 
Lists of regulated pests 13 15 40 36 0 100 31 
Points of entry 40 20 27 49 20 100 46 
Emergency action 3 0 2 3 0 100 15 
Optional reporting               
Non-compliance 3 10 0 0 0 0 0 
Organizational arrangements of NPPO  8 5 2 9 0 0 15 
Pest status 0 5 2 3 0 0 15 
PRA/rationale for regulations...) 0 0 9 6 0 0 8 
Publications 29 25 20 24 13 0 31 
Data uploaded by IPPC Secretariat               
Projects 55 85 13 30 47 0 46 
 
 
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