Pursuant to Article 17 of the Rotterdam Convention, the Conference of the Parties is required to develop and approve procedures and institutional mechanisms for determining non-compliance with the provisions of the Prior Inform Consent (PIC) of the Convention and for the treatment of Parties found to be in non-compliance.

The first meeting of the Conference of the Parties convened an Open-ended Ad-Hoc Working Group on Article 17 that met in 2005. The matter of compliance was again considered during the second, third, fourth and fifth meetings of the Conference of the Parties. On May 2013 at its sixth meeting, the Conference of the Parties adopted decision RC-6/9 on procedures and mechanisms on compliance with the Rotterdam Convention, whereby it decided:

• to continue its consideration of procedures and institutional mechanisms on non-compliance required under article 17 of the Convention  at its seventh meeting,
• that the draft text reflecting the outcome of the work of the contact group on compliance that met during the sixth meeting of the Conference of the Parties, set out in the annex to the present decision, shall form the basis for its further work on the procedures and mechanisms at its seventh meeting; and
• that further work on the procedures and mechanisms on compliance with the Convention shall be placed early on the agenda at its seventh meeting.