31. The 8th Session of the CCFICS agreed that the first draft of the proposed draft Guidelines for Food Import Control Systems would initially be prepared by the Secretariat for subsequent consideration by a drafting group consisting of Australia, Canada, France, India, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, the United Kingdom and the United States. The Committee further agreed that after consideration by the drafting group, the proposed draft Guidelines would be circulated for comment at Step 3 and further consideration at its current meeting.[13]
32. In introducing the document on behalf of the drafting group, the delegation of Australia noted that the proposed draft Guidelines took account of discussions and written comments submitted at the 8th Session of the CCFICS. It was further noted that the current document consisted of four principal sections, namely: Scope, Definitions, General Characteristics of Food Import Control Systems, and Implementation of the Control System. The Committee agreed to consider the document revised by the drafting group as the basis for its discussions at Step 4.
GENERAL COMMENTS
33. The Committee thanked the drafting group for its efforts in improving the text, and generally agreed that the document should be advanced in the Codex Step Procedure. It was suggested, however, that the document as currently drafted went beyond the intended scope in that the conditions proposed regarding food import control systems were also in some cases related to exporting countries.
34. The Committee agreed that the document should be totally re-numbered in future revisions for consistency with other texts related to food inspection and certification systems adopted by the Commission.
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF FOOD IMPORT CONTROL SYSTEMS
35. The Committee agreed that the fourth bullet in the Section should be clarified to indicate that food import control systems should give “precedence to the protection of consumers over economic and trade considerations”. The Committee also agreed that the seventh bullet point and other references in the text to “outcomes/objectives” of food control systems as related to those for domestic food should stipulate that “levels of protection” are ensured between import and domestic food control systems.
REQUIREMENTS FOR IMPORTED FOOD THAT ARE EQUIVALENT WITH REQUIREMENTS FOR DOMESTIC FOOD
36. As the Committee was of the opinion that the term “equivalence” was not applicable to specific food requirements, the term was replaced with “consistent” in order to align the title of the section with language used in the section addressing general requirements for food import control systems. The Committee agreed to combine the first two paragraphs of this Section and to include reference to the role of auditing of systems.
37. The Committee decided to delete entirely the paragraph describing the special case of zero tolerances related to pesticide or veterinary drug residues as being only one particular case out of many that had to be taken into consideration.
CLEARLY DEFINED RESPONSIBILITIES OF IMPORTED FOOD CONTROL AUTHORITY OR AUTHORITIES
38. It was suggested that the Section might be further clarified by the drafting group to define more precisely the role of bodies responsible for issuing and/or verifying the accuracy of certificates. The delegation of France, speaking on behalf of the Members of the European Union present at the Session[14], provided additional text in writing relevant to this topic, and the Committee agreed that the drafting group would consider the text.
CLEARLY DEFINED AND TRANSPARENT LEGISLATION/REGULATIONS AND OPERATING PROCEDURES
39. The Committee agreed with the general content of this section. The Committee decided to move the bullet related to the development of certification arrangements to the paragraph dealing with legal frameworks. The Committee agreed that the bulleted provision in paragraph 10 related to the powers of competent authorities concerning the disposition of imported products should be expanded to reflect the power of such authorities to order the destruction, reconditioning, re-export or designation of foods to alternative, non-food uses.
PRIORITY FOCUS ON THE HEALTH PROTECTION OF CONSUMERS
40. The Committee clarified the title and the text in this section to indicate that when designing and implementing food import control systems, precedence should be given to protecting the health of consumers and ensuring fair practices in food trade over economic and other trade considerations.
PROVISION FOR RECOGNITION OF THE FOOD CONTROL SYSTEM APPLIED BY AN EXPORTING COUNTRY’S COMPETENT AUTHORITY
41. The Committee reaffirmed that the Guidelines were directed to food import control systems. However, the section was clarified to indicate that such systems could include provisions for the recognition of requirements stipulated in food control systems applied by exporting countries where appropriate and further agreed to delete reference to distribution of food products. It was also agreed that future revisions to the text should address unilateral recognition agreements.
CONSISTENT NATIONAL IMPLEMENTATION
42. The Committee changed the title to the Section to read “Uniform Nationwide Implementation”.
IMPLEMENTATION OF THE CONTROL SYSTEM
43. It was suggested that the first sentence of the paragraph be deleted as redundant to the remainder of the section.
POINT OF CONTROL
44. The Committee added the provision “transport and distribution” to the bulleted list of import control points and to consider other potential control points in future revisions to the text inter alia, audit of the importers’ auto control.
45. The Committee agreed to refer to the drafting group a paragraph submitted by the United States on the avoidance of multiple or redundant certificates.
INFORMATION ABOUT INCOMING FOOD
46. The Committee noted several suggestions for amendments to the draft text of this Section, which would be further considered by the drafting group.
FREQUENCY AND TYPES OF INSPECTION
47. The Committee agreed to consider the testing of imported foods, including history of conformance and past history of health hazards, as potential future additions to the text.
SAMPLING AND ANALYSIS
48. It was agreed that official analyses should be performed in official or officially accredited laboratories.
DECISION CRITERIA
49. The Committee transferred the paragraph on the interpretation of results from the previous section to the section on “Decision Criteria”, as it was considered to be more appropriate in this section. The Committee agreed that the future revisions to the text should consider the inclusion of an appeal mechanism or review of rejections of consignments and clear time frames for these.
DEALING WITH EMERGENCIES
50. The Committee changed the title of the Section to “Dealing with Emergency Situations”, and agreed that the text should be in accordance with the Guidelines for the Exchange of Information in Food Control Emergency Situations” (CAC/GL 19-1995) and the Guidelines for the Exchange of Information Between Countries on Rejections of Imported Food (CAC/GL 25-1997).
RECOGNITION OF EXPORT CONTROLS
51. The Committee rearranged the final paragraph of this Section to clarify that certification agreements with exporting country official certification bodies may be of particular value where there is limited access to sophisticated facilities in the importing country.
OTHER CONSIDERATIONS
52. The Committee agreed that future revisions to the text should consider that when recognition is given to the control system of an exporting country, an audit of systems of the exporting country might be required rather than routine inspections.
DOCUMENTING THE SYSTEM
53. The Committee agreed to amend bullet 3 in paragraph 40 to “operating procedures, including methods of sampling, inspection and testing”.
SYSTEM VERIFICATION
54. The Committee agreed that future revisions to the text should incorporate relevant provisions from Section 9 of the Guidelines for the Design, Operation, Assessment and Accreditation of Food Import and Export Inspection and Certification Systems (CAC/GL 26-1997).
STATUS OF THE PROPOSED DRAFT GUIDELINES FOR FOOD IMPORT CONTROL SYSTEMS
55. In view of the progress made in its consideration of the text, the Committee forwarded the proposed draft Guidelines for Food Import Control Systems (see Appendix IV) to the 24th Session of the Codex Alimentarius Commission for adoption at Step 5.
56. The Committee also agreed that the drafting group[15] would immediately revise the Guidelines after adoption by the Commission on the basis of current discussions, written comments submitted for the present session and written comments to be submitted at Step 6. The revised text would then be circulated for additional comments and further consideration at the 10th Session of the CCFICS.
