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 fifth and sixth meetings of the Conference of the Parties. On May 2015 at its seventh meeting, the Conference of the Parties adopted decision RC-7/6 on procedures and mechanisms on compliance with the Rotterdam Convention, whereby it decided:
- to consider further at its eighth meeting, for adoption, the procedures and mechanisms on compliance required under Article 17 of the Convention;
- to invite the Bureau of the Conference of the Parties to facilitate intersessional consultations among all parties to promote a policy dialogue on outstanding issues with a view to resolving them in a way that facilitates the possible adoption of the procedures and institutional mechanisms required under Article 17 by the Conference of the Parties at its eighth meeting;
- that the draft text contained in the annex to the present decision shall be the basis for its further work on the procedures and institutional mechanisms at its eighth meeting; and
- that further work on the procedures and mechanisms on compliance with the Convention shall be placed early on the agenda at its eighth meeting.
In a letter dated 21 January 2016, the President of the eighth meeting of the Conference of the Parties, on behalf of the Bureau, invited Parties to the Convention to share, by 15 April 2016, their views on the outstanding issues with a view to resolving them in a way that facilitates the possible adoption of the procedures and institutional mechanisms required under Article 17 by the Conference of the Parties at its eighth meeting.