During its first meeting, the Conference of the Parties decided in decision RC-1/13, that the interim Prior Informed Consent procedure, which was initiated on 24 February 2004 (the date of entry into force of the convention), would cease to operate on the 24 February 2006. During this transitional period, the interim Prior Informed Consent procedure for participating States operated in parallel with the Convention Prior Informed Consent procedure for Parties.
For Participating States, the transitional arrangements will apply as follows:
- The Secretariat shall maintain two lists that clearly distinguish between Parties to the Convention and those States or regional economic integration organizations which have not yet ratified or acceded to the Convention but which are participating in the interim prior informed consent procedure during the transition period.
- All Participating States shall be treated equally with no distinction between those that have signed the Convention and those that have not.
- Participating States may attend meetings of the Conference of the Parties and the Chemical Review Committee as observers.
- The list of designated national authorities shall include participating States.
- Participating States shall benefit from the information exchange activities of article 14 of the Convention, as well as receiving the PIC Circular and decision guidance documents; participating States shall receive copies of decision guidance documents for any new chemicals added to Annex III during the transition period and are requested to provide an import response; import responses from participating States and cases of failure on their part to provide an import response shall be included in the PIC Circular.
- Both exporting Parties and exporting participating States are requested to observe the import decisions of participating States and Parties and to continue to provide export notifications pursuant to article 12 of the Convention.
- Participating States are encouraged to provide voluntary contributions to the operation of the Convention.
- Participating States are eligible for technical assistance for capacity-building in accordance with article 16 of the Convention, which is directed towards enabling them to ratify and implement the Convention.
At the end of the transition period import responses from non-Parties will be retained but not updated or circulated by the Secretariat.
The information will only be retained on this web site and will be accompanied by a clear statement addressing the date of publication, the absence of updates and the lack of liability accepted for the use of potentially outdated information.