Four draft standards approved for the second consultation by the IPPC Standards Committee Working Group

The Standards Committee working group (SC-7), led by the Chairperson, Mr Nico Horn (The Netherlands), met on 15-19 May 2017 in Rome and had an intense and fruitful week. The SC-7 consists of seven SC members; one representative per FAO region. They had detailed and in-depth discussions on the draft standards that were commented upon by IPPC Official contact points during the first consultation. The SC-7 considered the compiled comments, the stewards considerations and recommendations on the use of terms and consistency as provided by the Technical Panel for the Glossary.

The SC-7 approved four draft standards for submission to the second consultation period (1 July - 30 September 2017, through the Online Comment System):

• Draft 2016 Amendments to ISPM 5: Glossary of Phytosanitary Terms. The amendments to some of the Glossary terms will help ensure applicability of the definitions based on a common understanding of phytosanitary terms.

• Revision of ISPM 6: Surveillance. The revision will help address potential implementation issues that countries have identified when conducting their national surveillance systems.

• Requirements for the use of temperature treatments as a phytosanitary measure. This standard will set the requirements around the implementation of temperature treatments, which should help countries have confidence in treatments applied in international trade.

• Draft revisions to ISPM 15 (Regulation of wood packaging material in international trade) - Annex 1 and 2 for inclusion of the sulphuryl fluoride fumigation phytosanitary treatment of wood packaging material and the revision of the dielectric heating section in Annex 1 of ISPM 15. The revision of ISPM 15 to include sulphuryl fluoride treatments is a significant step towards providing alternative fumigants to methyl bromide.

The SC-7 report will soon be publicly available here: https://www.ippc.int/en/core-activities/standards-setting/standards-committee/.