Intersessional Task Groups are established by the Chemical Review Committee (CRC) to undertake an initial assessment of selected new notifications of final regulatory action scheduled for consideration by the CRC.
Intersessional Task Groups prepare reports, which includes an assessment of whether specific notifications meet the criteria set out in Annex II to the Rotterdam Convention. The notifications are made available on the meeting documents webpage. The initial review by the Intersessional Task Groups is intended to facilitate the work of the Committee and does not replace the requirement for each of the notifications to be considered by the entire Committee.
The intersessional task group work ahead of the twenty-first meeting of the Committee starts on 2 April 2025.
The draft reports that will be posted on this page will be finalized at the task group pre-meetings, to be held on 22 September 2025, prior to the Committee’s twenty-first meeting. The Task Group pre-meetings are open to all Committee members as well as to observers registered to participate in the twenty-first meeting of the CRC. The final reports from the Task Groups will be made available to the whole Committee as electronic Conference Room Papers (CRPs) for the meeting.
In line with the procedure for dealing with notifications of final regulatory action to ban or severely restrict a chemical (section 1.6 of the Handbook of working procedures and policy guidance for the Chemical Review Committee), the Bureau of the Chemical Review Committee decided to prioritize notifications of final regulatory action that would undergo intersessional work prior to the twentieth meeting of the Committee. Thus, a number of notifications that according to the preliminary review undertaken by the Secretariat and the Bureau appear to not meet the criteria of Annex II to the Convention, would not undergo intersessional work but would be considered directly by the Committee at its twenty-first meeting. Further information and the rationale for this selection is being provided in document UNEP/FAO/RC/CRC.21/2.