Notifications of final regulatory action are the means by which Parties inform the Secretariat of their actions to ban or severely restrict a chemical for human health and environmental reasons. Summaries of new notifications of final regulatory action are published each June and December in the PIC Circular and are in the database of notifications of final regulatory action.
Article 5 of the Convention sets out the obligations of Parties with respect to notifying the Secretariat of their final regulatory actions. If a Party takes a final regulatory action to ban or severely restrict a chemical for health and/or environmental reasons, it shares the information with all Parties by notifying the action to the Secretariat. Upon receipt of a notification of final regulatory action, the Secretariat must verify whether it meets the information requirements of Annex I of the Convention. If the notification is found to be complete against Annex I, a summary is prepared and published in the PIC Circular. The summary briefly describes the scope of the action and the reasons for it, including information on hazards and risks of the chemical to human health and/or the environment, and the expected effect of the regulatory action.
Parties, in preparing the submission of notifications of final regulatory actions, may wish to consider giving priority to the following subsets of chemicals for which notifications have already been submitted to the Secretariat.
Chemicals for which one complete notification has been received: Appendix V of the PIC Circular lists chemicals that are not listed in Annex III of the Convention but for which the Secretariat has received one notification that was verified as complete against the information requirements of Annex I of the Convention. A second notification for that chemical from a Party in a different PIC region could then trigger the process for the consideration of that chemical to be subject to the PIC procedure.
Chemicals for which a rationale has been adopted: Where the Chemical Review Committee (CRC) has determined that only one of the notifications of final regulatory actions in support of a candidate chemical meets the criteria of Annex II of the Convention, a rationale is prepared which explains how the criteria have been met. This rationale becomes part of the report of the CRC meeting. A second notification for the chemical from a Party in a different PIC region would then be reviewed by the CRC for the consideration of that chemical to be subject to the PIC procedure. The information available for these chemicals includes: notifications of final regulatory actions, supporting documentation and the rationales explaining why the notifications meet the criteria of Annex II of the Convention.