5. The Committee took note of the report made by the Secretariat on the major outcome of the 22nd Session of the Codex Alimentarius Commission (Geneva, June 1997), the 7th Session of the CCFFV (Mexico City, September 1997) and the 30th Session of the CCFH (Washington DC, October 1997).
6. The Delegation of Thailand expressed the view that in formulating international standards, decisions should be reached by consensus; in particular when the Commission adopts a draft standard at Step 8. The Delegation suggested that if a voting was necessary for adoption of a draft standard as a final text, a two-third-majority principle, instead of the current simple majority principle, should be used by the Commission to better express its consensus. The Committee noted that this issue was to be considered by the CCGP.
7. The Observer from Consumers International referred to the conclusion of the 22nd Session of the Commission on the involvement of non-governmental organizations in the work of the Commission[2] and stressed that the representatives of consumers should be allowed to attend the sessions of the Executive Committee. The Committee noted that the Executive Committee had discussed the matter and had agreed that while all non-governmental organizations should enjoy the equal status as observers at Codex meetings, the admission of non-governmental organizations to the sessions of the Executive Committee as observers might not assist in the efficiency and impartiality of the Committee’s work.
8. In reference to the work of the CCFFV, the Delegation of Thailand noted that the duplication of work between Codex and UNECE should be avoided as much as possible and that in harmonization process, all concerns, including those from the tropical region and the proposer of the standard, should be taken into consideration. The Committee recommended that the issue be brought to the attention of the CCFFV.
9. With regard to the on-going work of the CCFH, the Delegation of Thailand emphasized that in considering the discussion paper prepared by Norway on the Broader Issues on the Application of Microbiological Risk Evaluation in International Food and Feed Trade, different conditions between regions should be taken into account and that technical assistance should be provided in building the capacity of developing countries to conduct appropriate risk evaluations in this area. The Committee was reminded that government comments were being requested on the discussion paper currently circulated under a Codex Circular Letter.
