Members of the Secretariat with interim CRC Chair Noluzuko Gwayi, and Carlos Martin-Novella, Deputy Executive Secretary, BRS Secretariat, during CRC-13.

The fourteenth meeting of the Chemical Review Committee (CRC-14) of the Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent (PIC) Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade will be held from 11-13 September 2018 at the headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) in Rome, Italy. This meeting will precede the fourteenth meeting of the Persistent Organic Pollutants Review Committee of the Stockholm Convention.

CRC-14 is set to consider the draft decision guidance documents for acetochlor, hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD) and phorate; and the updated version of the Handbook of Working Procedures and Policy Guidance for the Chemical Review Committee.

The Committee will also review the notifications of final regulatory action for:

• HBCD as notified by Canada published in the PIC Circular in 2018;
• Methyl-parathion as notified by Panama published in 2018; and
• Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), its salts and PFOA related compounds as notified by Canada and Norway published in 2018 and 2015, respectively.

This represents a lighter agenda than that considered by CRC-13, where the Committee considered the final regulatory actions pertaining to 13 hazard chemicals as well as proposals to include two severely hazardous pesticide formulations to Annex III of the Rotterdam Convention (Chemicals subject to the prior informed procedure).

CRC-14 will be the last intersessional meeting of the Committee before the next joint COPs of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions, scheduled to be held from 29 April-10 May 2019.

See the ENB summary and analysis of CRC-13.