33. The 7th Session of the CCFICS requested Australia and the United Kingdom to redraft the proposed draft Guidelines and Criteria for Official Certificate Formats and Rules Relating to the Production and Issuance of Certificates for circulation and comments at Step 3.[9] The Committee also noted that the forthcoming 4th Session of the Codex Committee on Milk and Milk Products (Wellington, New Zealand, 28 February - 3 March 2000) would be considering a Model Export Certificate for Milk and Milk Products (CX/MMP 00/17) and that a progress report on the CCMMP deliberations would be reported to the 9th Session of the CCFICS.
34. The Committee thanked Australia and the United Kingdom for their work and agreed to the Guidelines with minor changes. Among changes to the text agreed to by the Committee were the following:
TITLE OF THE GUIDELINES
35. The Committee retitled the text as proposed draft Guidelines for Generic Official Certificate Formats and the Production and Issuance of Certificates as suggested by the author countries.
PREAMBLE
36. The Committee added a Preamble section to indicate that the Guidelines were predicated on the presumption that commercial parties were responsible for product safety and conformity with requirements at all stages of food production.
OBJECTIVES
37. The Committee agreed that issues of quarantine related to animal and plant health were not within its terms of reference and therefore, clarified this section to indicate that certificates contained information to meet importing country requirements for both safety and fair trade in food. It was also agreed that the definition for requirements would be cross-referenced to the Codex Principles for Inspection and Certification (CAC/GL 20-1995).
PRINCIPLES
38. The Committee clarified the leading paragraph to this section to indicate that certificates should only be required in cases where it was necessary to ensure product safety or to ensure fair trade practices. The Committee revised the bullet points regarding the design or use of certificates by deleting irrelevant text and by adding a new point concerning certificate use to minimize the risk of fraud. The bullet points were also rearranged for clarity.
SCOPE
39. After extensive debate, the Committee decided to extend the Guidelines to the use of officially recognized certificates in addition to official certificates with the understanding that the term officially recognized certificates would be placed in square brackets pending the development of a definition in the future. It further agreed to delete the second sentence of paragraph 3 as issues of transparency and non-discrimination were adequately covered elsewhere. The Committee decided to move the Scope section to immediately after the section concerning Objectives.
CRITERIA
Standard Format
40. The Committee agreed that the terms original copy and duplicate copy should be clearly defined and that separate conditions concerning the use of electronic certification should be developed in the future. The Committee also agreed to add a section in square brackets indicating that certificates issued by officially recognized bodies may, or may not, be required to have a unique identification number as appropriate to the circumstances, with the understanding that this issue would be further discussed in the future.
41. The Committee supported the opinion of Canada and other delegations that the alternate provisions proposed in paragraph 12 of CX/FICS 00/4 were subject to further debate and therefore the paragraph remained in square brackets. The Committee agreed that definitions of the terms officially printed copies, officially recognized certificates, officially recognized bodies and official certificates would be elaborated. It also modified paragraph 11 to indicate that certificates should be designed so as to minimize the risk of fraud.
Details of the consignment
42. The Committee agreed in principle that this sub-section should contain a minimum list of categories of information to be included in certificates rather than developing an exhaustive list and modified the introductory paragraph accordingly. The Committee revised and re-ordered the existing bullet points in this section, deleted irrelevant points and added additional points concerning the nature of the food, identity of the production establishment, country of dispatch and any other information required by the importing country.
Health attestation
43. The Committee changed the title of the section to Attestation to more accurately reflect the content of the corresponding text. The Committee further modified this section to indicate that the Guidelines did not address matters related to animal and plant health, notwithstanding the fact that animal and plant health attestations may be contained in certificates. The Committee also decided to include attestations to product conformity with particular grade or other requirements.
Responsibility of the certifying authority
44. The Committee clarified this section to indicate that the certifying authority should be designated and adequately empowered by national legislation or regulation to provide the particular attestations required within a certificate.
Responsibility of certifying officers
45. The Committee revised and re-ordered the existing bullet points in this section, deleted irrelevant points and added an additional point indicating that the certifying officer should be appropriately designated by the certifying authority.
Instructions for commercial parties
46. After extensive debate, the Committee decided that the responsibilities of commercial parties should be addressed in the Preamble to the Guidelines. This Section was therefore retitled as Presentation of Original Certificate and the remaining paragraph indicated that the importer was responsible for ensuring that the product was presented to the importing country authorities in accordance with the importing country's regulations.
Replacement certificate
47. The Committee clarified this Section to indicate that a replacement certificate should reference the number of the original certificate.
Status of the Proposed Draft Codex Guidelines for Generic Official Certificate Formats and the Production and Issuance of Certificates
48. The Committee agreed to forward the Proposed Draft Guidelines for Generic Official Certificate Formats and the Production and Issuance of Certificates to the 47th Session of the Executive Committee for adoption at Step 5 (see Appendix II). The Committee further agreed that a drafting group under the direction of Australia and the United Kingdom, with the participation of Canada, France, India, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, the United States and the European Commission, would review comments submitted during the current discussions of the Committee as well as comments submitted at Step 6 subsequent to CCEXEC adoption with a view towards the consideration of an amended text at the Committee's 9th Session. In the interests of transparency, all comments submitted at Step 6 by the due date would be reproduced in their entirety in the working paper to be prepared for the next meeting.
49. In taking this decision, the Committee agreed to inform the 47th Session of the Executive Committee that the following issues in particular remain under consideration:
