Subject: PANUPS: PIC Update

From: EcoNet Pesticide Issue Desk <[email-masked]>
Date: 19 Apr 94 11:50 PDT

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  PESTICIDE ACTION NETWORK NORTH AMERICA UPDATES SERVICE
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Prior Informed Consent Update

April 18, 1992

A progress report on implementation of the Prior Informed 
Consent (PIC) procedure was presented at the seventh meeting 
of the United Nations Joint Group of Experts on PIC in Rome 
on March 22-25, 1994.  Prior Informed Consent is an 
international procedure that requires that importing 
governments be informed of the hazards of specific pesticide 
products and give explicit consent for their import before 
the pesticides are shipped.  

PIC is jointly operated by the United Nations Food and 
Agriculture Organization (FAO) Plant Protection Division and 
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) through its 
International Register of Potentially Toxic Chemicals (IRPTC) 
in Geneva.  The FAO is the lead agency for operating the PIC 
scheme for pesticides.  The joint FAO/UNEP panel of experts, 
which includes NGO observers, was established to develop and 
guide the process, and now meets about every nine months.

At the recent experts' meeting, it was reported that 
approximately 120 governments, including all major industrial 
countries, are now participating in the PIC process.  To 
participate in PIC, governments must appoint a Designated 
National Authority (DNA) to both receive information and 
convey to exporting industries within their country the 
decisions of other governments.  

Although participation in PIC is high, there are still 
countries that need to appoint DNAs to become part of the 
process.  At present, some significant exporters, notably 
Taiwan and South Korea, have not appointed DNAs, and 
therefore, are not participating in the scheme.  These 
countries will not be notified of the decisions of other 
countries to allow or prohibit the import of PIC pesticides, 
and are not under any obligation to abide by the decisions of 
importing governments.  In contrast, the European Union has 
made PIC legally binding on exporters, and the Clinton 
Administration is currently considering similar legislation.  

Some importing countries, for example Mali and some countries 
of the former USSR, have not yet appointed DNAs.  In other 
instances, though DNAs have been appointed, their governments 
have not given the scheme the backing it needs to work 
effectively.  This may be the result of several factors such 
as a lack of resources or an insufficient understanding of 
the procedure.

Pesticides and chemicals included in the PIC process have 
been banned or severely restricted for health or 
environmental reasons in five or more countries or in any one 
country after January 1, 1992.  Pesticides can also be 
included if they cause health or environmental problems under 
conditions of use in developing countries.  IRPTC provides 
participating governments with information about PIC-listed 
pesticides and the reasons for any control actions in the 
form of a Decision Guidance Document (DGD).  Government 
import decisions whether or not to allow import of PIC-listed 
chemicals are then conveyed to the FAO/UNEP secretariat, 
which informs the DNAs of all government decisions on each 
compound every six months.  Participating governments are 
then required to inform their own export industries of these 
decisions. 

To date, Decision Guidance Documents have been completed for 
twelve pesticides.  There are currently an additional 39 
pesticides and chemicals that are either in the process of 
being confirmed for PIC or awaiting completion of DGDs.  
Pesticides causing problems under conditions of use in 
developing countries continue to be a major concern, since 
many of the pesticides initially included were not 
necessarily those most responsible for health hazards.  

Implementation of PIC has been difficult for many reasons, 
only one of which has been a lack of FAO personnel assigned 
to PIC.  Other problems facing many of the participating 
governments range from establishing decision-making 
structures to understanding what information is important to 
include on forms.  To facilitate implementation, DNA training 
workshops have been held in Chile and Thailand in the past 
year, and another is scheduled for Andean Pact countries in 
July 1994.  Non-governmental organizations are generally 
invited.  No workshops have been scheduled for Africa, though 
European Union funding may be available for such workshops in 
the future.  

Designated National Authorities have expressed concern 
regarding a perceived lack of alternatives to many of the 
pesticides in the PIC procedure and consistently ask for more 
information.  Although the governments banning or severely 
restricting a pesticide are asked to name what they recommend 
as an alternative, this information is rarely given and is 
not always helpful.  Some recommended alternatives have been 
more hazardous than the pesticide in question, while others 
may not be appropriate for the different climatic conditions, 
agricultural practices, etc.  Those attending the experts' 
meeting suggested that attempts should be made to integrate 
PIC activities with other related programs such as IPM and 
the FAO/OECD initiative for developing pesticide use 
reduction programs. 

The FAO has now appointed Bill Murray in the Plant Protection 
Division to work on PIC, and things are beginning to move 
more quickly.  Priorities set at the meeting include 
finalizing and circulating the next set of DGDs, improving 
the quality of DGDs, and revising the Guidance for 
Governments, a basic PIC manual.

Source/contact:  Barbara Dinham, The Pesticides Trust, 
Eurolink Business Centre, 249 Effra Road, London, SW9 1BZ, 
England; phone (44-71) 274-8895; fax (44-71) 274-9084; email 
[email-masked].

Resource: Putting PIC in Place. 1993. A guide for public 
interest groups to the PIC procedure as it relates to 
pesticides.  17 pp.  Free to NGOs.  Available from The 
Pesticides Trust (see above).
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The Pesticide Action Network Updates Service (PANUPS) is a 
pesticide-related news service posted weekly by the Pesticide 
Action Network North America Regional Center (PANNA). PANNA is 
located at 116 New Montgomery Street, #810, San Francisco, CA 
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