APPENDIX 3
Amendments to the Rules of Procedure of the Codex Alimentarius Commission

Adopted by the Commission at its 21st Session 1995 Subject to approval by the Directors-General of FAO and WHO

Rule II - Officers

1. Amend Rule II.1 by the insertion of the following sentences after the second sentence:

The Chairman and Vice-Chairmen may remain in office only with the continuing endorsement of the respective Member of the Commission of which they were a delegate at the time of election. The Directors-General of FAO and WHO shall declare a position vacant when advised by the Member of the Commission that such endorsement has ceased.

2. Amend Rule II.4(c) to read as follows:

(c) The functions of the Coordinators shall be:

1. to assist and coordinate the work of the Codex Committees set up under Rule IX.1(b)(i) in their region or group of countries in the preparation of draft standards, guidelines and other recommendations for submission to the Commission.

2. to assist the Executive Committee and the Commission, as required, by advising them of the views of countries and recognized regional intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations in their respective regions on matters under discussion or of interest.

3. Amend Rule II.4(d) and add new Rule II.4(e) as follows:

(d) Where a Coordinating Committee has been set up under Rule IX.1(b)(ii), the Coordinator of the region involved should be the Chairman of the Committee.

(e) Where a Coordinator is not able to carry out the functions of office, the Member of the Commission of which the Coordinator was a delegate at the time of appointment shall inform the Secretary of the Commission accordingly and shall appoint an interim Coordinator until such time as the Coordinator is able to resume those functions or until the next session of the Commission.

Revision of the Procedural Manual: Amendments to the General Principles of the Codex Alimentarius, Guidelines for Codex Committees and Relations between Codex Commodity Committees and General Committees

General Principles of the Codex Alimentarius (Procedural Manual, Section D)

Revision of Codex Standards (New text)

8. The Codex Alimentarius Commission and its subsidiary bodies are committed to revision as necessary of Codex standards and related texts to ensure that they are consistent with and reflect current scientific knowledge and other relevant information. When required, a standard or related text shall be revised or removed using the same procedures as followed for the elaboration of a new standard. Each member of the Codex Alimentarius Commission is responsible for identifying, and presenting to the appropriate committee, any new scientific and other relevant information which may warrant revision of any existing Codex standards or related texts.

A. Guidelines for Codex Committees

Introduction

1. By virtue of Article 7 of the Statutes of the Codex Alimentarius Commission and Rule IX.1(b)(i) of its Rules of Procedure, the Commission has established a number of Codex Committees to prepare standards in accordance with the Procedure for the Elaboration of Codex Standards and Coordinating Committees to exercise general coordination of its work in specific regions or groups of countries. The Rules of Procedure of the Commission shall apply, mutatis mutandis, to Codex Committees and Coordinating Committees.

Composition of Codex Committees

Membership

2. Membership of Codex Committees is open to Members of the Commission who have notified the Director-General of FAO or WHO of their desire to be considered as members thereof or to selected members designated by the Commission. Membership of Regional Coordinating Committees is open only to Members of the Commission belonging to the region or groups of countries concerned.

Organization and Duties

Chairmanship

5. A member country to which a Codex Committee has been assigned is responsible for providing all conference services including the secretariat. The secretariat should have adequate administrative support staff able to work easily in the languages used at the session and should have at its disposal adequate word processing and document reproducing equipment. Interpretation, preferably simultaneous, should be provided from and into all languages used at the session, and if the report of the session is to be adopted in more than one of the working languages of the Committee, then the services of a translator should be available. The Committee secretariat and the Joint FAO/WHO (Codex) Secretariat are charged with the preparation of the draft report in consultation with the rapporteurs, if any.

Duties and Terms of Reference

6. The duties of a Codex Committee shall include:

1. the drawing up of a list of priorities as appropriate, among the subjects and products within its terms of reference,

2. consideration of the types of safety and quality elements (or recommendations) to be covered, whether in standards for general application or in reference to specific food products,

3. consideration of the types of product to be covered by standards, e.g., whether materials for further processing into food should be covered,

4. preparation of draft Codex standards within its terms of reference,

5. reporting to each session of the Commission on the progress of its work and, where necessary, on any difficulties caused by its terms of reference, together with suggestions for their amendment,

6. the review and, as necessary, revision of existing standards and related texts on a scheduled, periodic basis to ensure that the standards and related texts within its terms of reference are consistent with current scientific knowledge and other relevant information.

SESSIONS

Invitations and Provisional Agenda

7. (a) Sessions of Codex Committees and Coordinating Committees will be convened by the Directors-General of FAO and WHO in consultation with the chairman of the respective Codex Committee. The letter of invitation and provisional agenda shall be prepared by the Chief, Joint FAO/WHO Food Standards Programme, FAO, Rome, in consultation with the chairman of the committee for issue by the Directors-General to all Members and Associate Members of FAO and WHO or, in the case of Coordinating Committees, to the countries of the region or group of countries concerned, Codex Contact Points and interested international organizations in accordance with the official mailing lists of FAO and WHO. Chairmen should, before finalizing the drafts, inform and consult with the national Codex Contact Point where one has been established, and, if necessary, obtain clearance from the national authorities concerned (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Health, or as the case may be). The invitation and Provisional Agenda will be translated and distributed by FAO/WHO in the working languages of the Commission at least four months before the date of the meeting.

(b) Invitations should include the following:

1. title of the Codex Committee,
2. time and date of opening and date of closing of the session,
3. place of the session,
4. languages to be used and arrangements for interpretation, i.e., whether simultaneous or not,
5. if appropriate, information on hotel accommodation,
6. request for the names of the chief delegate and other members of the delegation, and for information on whether the chief delegate of a government will be attending as a representative or in the capacity of an observer.

Replies to invitations will normally be requested to be sent to reach the chairman as early as possible and in any case not less than 30 days before the session. A copy should be sent also to the Chief, Joint FAO/WHO Food Standards Programme, FAO, Rome. It is of the utmost importance that by the date requested a reply to invitations should be sent by all those governments and international organizations which intend to participate. The reply should specify the number of copies and the language of the documents required.

(c) The Provisional Agenda should state the time, date and place of the meeting and should include the following items:

1. adoption of the agenda,
2. if considered necessary, election of rapporteurs,
3. items relating to subject matter to be discussed, including, where appropriate, the step in the Commission's Procedure for the Elaboration of Standards at which the item is being dealt with at the session. There should also be reference to the Committee papers relevant to the item,
4. any other business,
5. consideration of date and place of next session,
6. adoption of draft report.

The work of the Committee and the length of the meeting should be so arranged as to leave sufficient time at the end of the session for a report of the Committee's transactions to be agreed.

Organization of Work

8. A Codex or Coordinating Committee may assign specific tasks to countries, groups of countries or to international organizations represented at meetings of the Committee and may ask member countries and international organizations for views on specific points. Ad hoc working groups established to accomplish specific tasks shall be disbanded once the tasks have been accomplished as determined by the Committee. Reports of ad hoc working groups shall be distributed to all members of the Committee and observers in time to allow full consideration of the working groups' recommendations. A Codex or Coordinating Committee may not set up standing sub-committees, whether open to all Members of the Commission or not, without the specific approval of the Commission.

9. (e) Consecutive reference numbers in suitable series should be assigned to all documents of Codex Committees. (End of the paragraph unchanged).

Conduct of Meetings

10. (a) Meetings of Codex and Coordinating Committees shall be held in public unless the Committee decides otherwise. Member countries responsible for Codex and Coordinating Committees shall decide who should open meetings on their behalf. The chairman should invite observations from members of the Committee concerning the Provisional Agenda and in the light of such observations formally request the Committee to adopt the Provisional Agenda or the amended agenda. Meetings should be conducted in accordance with the Rules of Procedure of the Codex Alimentarius Commission. Attention is particularly drawn to Rule VI.7 which reads: “The provisions of Rule XII of the General Rules of FAO shall apply mutatis mutandis to all matters which are not specifically dealt with under Rule VI of the present Rules.” Rule XII of the the General Rules of FAO, a copy of which will be supplied to all chairmen, of Codex and Coordinating Committees, gives full instructions on the procedures to be followed in dealing with voting, points of order, adjournment and suspension of meetings, adjournment and closure of discussions on a particular item, reconsideration of a subject already decided and the order in which amendments should be dealt with.

Reports

(c) The Joint FAO/WHO Secretariat should ensure that, as soon as possible and in any event not later than one month after the end of the session, copies of the final report, as adopted, are sent to all participants, and all Codex Contact Points.

Drawing-up of Codex Standards and Related Texts

12. A Codex committee, in drawing up standards and related texts, should bear in mind the following:

1. The guidance given in the General Principles of the Codex Alimentarius;

2. that all standards and related texts should have a preface containing the following information:

   1. the description of the standard or related text,
   2. a brief description of the scope and purpose(s) of the standard or related text,
   3. references including the step which the standard or related text has reached in the Commission's Procedures for the Elaboration of Standards, together with the date on which the draft was approved,

   4. matters in the draft standard or related text requiring endorsement or action by other Codex Committees.

3. that for standards or any related text for a product which includes a number of sub-categories, the Committee should give preference to the development of may either draft a general standard or related text with specific provisions as necessary for sub-categories with different requirements;

4. that, in general, it should not be necessary to change the name of a food solely because of the presence of a permitted food additive. However, in some instances, where the additive results in a significant change in the product, appropriate labelling may be required in addition to the listing of the additive among the declaration of ingredients.

Relations between Commodity Committees and General Committees

Codex Committees may ask the advice and guidance of committees having responsibility for matters applicable to all foods on any points coming within their province.

The Codex Committees on Food Labelling; Food Additives and Contaminants; Methods of Analysis and Sampling; Food Hygiene; Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses; and Food Import and Export Inspection and Certification Systems may establish general provisions on matters within their terms of reference. These provisions should only be incorporated into Codex Commodity Standards by reference unless there is a need for doing otherwise.

Codex Commodity standards shall contain sections on hygiene, labelling and methods of analysis and sampling and these sections should contain all of the relevant provisions of the standard. Provisions of Codex General Standards, Codes or Guidelines shall only be incorporated into Codex Commodity Standards by reference unless there is a need for doing otherwise. Where Codex Committees are of the opinion that the general provisions are not applicable to one or more commodity standards, they may request the responsible Committees to endorse deviations from the general provisions of the Codex Alimentarius. Such requests should be fully justified and supported by available scientific evidence and other relevant information. Sections on hygiene, labelling, and methods of analysis and sampling which contain specific provisions or provisions supplementing the Codex General Standards, Codes or Guidelines shall be referred to the responsible Codex Committees at the most suitable time during Steps 3, 4 and 5 of the Procedure for the Elaboration of Codex Standards and Related Texts, though such reference should not be allowed to delay the progress of the standard to the subsequent steps of the Procedure.

The following amendments apply to the procedures for endorsement of provisions relating to Food Labelling, Food Additives, Food Hygiene:

Food Labelling: Delete the first paragraph, which is now covered by the general description of the endorsement procedures above. The remainder of this section, adopted by the Commission in 1991, remains unchanged.

Food Additives: This section is temporarily retained pending clarification on how Commodity Committees would be able to interact with the Committee on Food Additives and Contaminants within the framework of the Draft General Standard for Food Additives in the course of elaboration.

Food Hygiene: Delete the first paragraph, which is now covered by the general description of the endorsement procedures above. The remainder of this section, adopted by the Commission in 1993, remains unchanged.

Provisions to be Amended in the Procedural, Manual to Remove Gender-Specific References (English Only)¹

Section I

¹ The numbers in square brackets refer to the page numbers of the Procedural Manual, Eighth Edition.

² “chairmanship” in the third line, should be replaced by “the Chair”.

³ “chairmanship” should be replaced by “the Chair”.