Background and Parties to the Agreement
At its 23rd Session (November 1955), the FAO Council approved the Plant Protection Agreement for the Asia and Pacific Region (formerly Plant Protection Agreement for the South-East Asia and Pacific Region)
for submission to Governments for acceptance.
The Agreement came into force on 2 July 1956 and was registered with the Secretariat of the United Nations on 20 July 1956 under No. 1963.
The following Contracting Governments provided their definitive signature or deposited the pertinent instrument of ratification or adherence to the Agreement on the date indicated:

In light of the notifications received by the Governments of the Netherlands, Portugal and the United Kingdom, the parties to the Agreement as of 4 August 2009 are twenty-four.

Amendments to the Agreement
The FAO Council approved amendments to the Agreement in 1967, 1979, 1983 and 1999. Some of these amendments have entered into force for all Contracting Governments while others only with respect to the Contracting Governments that have actually accepted those amendments, as it will be described below.  
At its 49th Session (November 1967), the FAO Council approved an amendment to extend the geographical scope of the Region. This amendment came into force with respect to all Contracting Governments on 16 August 1969.

At its 75th Session (June 1979), the FAO Council approved the deletion of the words "South East" in the title of the Agreement and the change of the name of the Commission to read "Asia and Pacific Plant Protection Commission" (hereafter “the Commission”). These amendments came into force with respect to all Contracting Governments on 16 February 1983.
At its 84th Session (November 1983), the FAO Council approved two sets of amendments to the Agreement related to the following issues:

1. an amendment to the definition of the Region in Article I in order to include the People's Republic of China in the definition of the Region; and
2. the introduction of mandatory contributions in order to finance certain activities of the Commission.
   

The amendment to Article I of the Agreement to include the People's Republic of China in the definition of the Region came into force with respect to all Contracting Governments on 23 May 1990.  
The second set of amendments introducing mandatory contributions entails new obligations for the Contracting Governments. Therefore, as provided for in paragraph 4 of Article IX, these amendments came into force on the thirtieth day after acceptance by two-thirds of the Contracting Governments, i.e. on 4 September 2009, but only with respect to the Contracting Governments that have actually accepted these amendments (see the table below). These amendments remain open for acceptance by the remaining Contracting Governments.
With the entry into force of the amendments referred to above, there are currently two versions of the Agreement in force for two different sets of Contracting Governments:

1. The Agreement as approved in 1955 and amended in 1967, 1979 and in 1983 (to include the People’s Republic of China in the definition of the Region) which is binding for seven Contracting Governments; and
2. The Agreement as approved in 1955 and amended in 1967, 1979 and in 1983 (to include the People’s Republic of China in the definition of the Region and to introduce mandatory contributions) which is binding for seventeen Contracting Governments.

At its 117th Session (November 1999), the FAO Council approved another two sets of amendments to the Agreement related to the following issues:

1. amendments designed to bring the Agreement into line with the new revised text of the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) and the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement) and with modern requirements for plant protection, as well as amendments designed to strengthen the Commission; and
2. amendments providing for the deletion from the Agreement of measures to exclude the “South American Leaf Blight of Hevea” from the Region.
   

Both sets of amendments have been transmitted for acceptance to the Contracting Parties (circulation of the second set of amendments had been postponed by the FAO Council “until such time as a satisfactory regional standard on South American Leaf Blight of Hevea [had] been adopted by the Commission”. This standard was adopted by the Commission at its 26th Session, New Delhi, August-September 2009) and remain open for acceptance.
In sum, there are three sets of amendments open for acceptance by the Contracting Governments as show in the following table:

In order to facilitate as far as possible a process of acceptance of a consolidated Agreement thereby reducing the inconvenience of several legal regimes,
the Contracting Governments which are considering to accept some or all of these amendments are invited to contact the FAO Legal Office.
 

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