Introduction
At the 7th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Rotterdam Convention, Parties called on the Secretariat to address problems in submission of import responses stemming from Parties employing different definitions of pesticides. Following this request, the Secretariat sent out a questionnaire in 2016 to seek information from Parties.
At the 8th meeting, the Conference of the Parties in further considering the matter, agreed that the work on the survey on different definitions and the preparation of a comprehensive analysis of the responses and a description of the potential implications of the use of different definitions including options for how to address them should continue. The survey was then relaunched between November 2017 and February 2018.
In addition to the information submitted by Parties, the Secretariat conducted further online search of definitions of the term “pesticides” for Parties that did not respond to the survey at that time. That information is available in document UNEP-FAO-RC-COP.9-INF-7.
Parties’ submissions on national definitions for the term "pesticide" are continuously made available on this website as received and Parties are encouraged to adopt, as soon as possible, a national definition for the term “pesticide” and to communicate national definitions to the Secretariat; as reemphasized in decision RC-11/1 adopted by COP-11 in 2023.