Guidance for packing shipping holding and release of sterile flies in area wide fruit fly control programmes : Joint FAO IAEA Programme of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture The International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) is the international treaty under which the International Standards for Phytosanitary Measures (ISPM) are adopted. ISPMs enable the development of technically justified measures for imported plants and plant products and are intended to harmonize phytosanitary measures applied in international trade. These standards are the accepted reference under the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement). The use and transboundary shipment of sterile insects was not part of ISPM No. 3 Code of Conduct for the Import and Release of Exotic Biological Control Agents adopted in 1995 because biological control agents had been defined as self replicating organisms. Since the implementation of the Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) has largely been dominated by the public sector this did not represent a problem for the transboundary shipment of sterile insects. However the lack of regulatory framework did discourage private investment in the production and shipment of sterile insects.Over the last three years (2002 2005) ISPM No. 3 has undergone a major revision to update and broaden its scope. In particular we have been involved in explicitly including sterile insects as beneficials in the revised standard. The revised ISPM No.3 Guidelines for the Export Shipment Import and Release of Biological Control Agents and Other Beneficial Organisms was drafted in 2004 and submitted for country consultation. The revised ISPM No. 3 was adopted by the governing body of the IPPC the Interim Commission for Phytosanitary Measures (ICPM) in April 2005 at FAO headquarters in Rome. Thus sterile insects are considered in parallel to other beneficial organisms by the IPPC through the adoption of the revised ISPM No. 3 and this should facilitate their use especially in terms of commercialization of the SIT and international trade of sterile insects. Publishers description