9. The Commission took note of the opinion of the legal counsels of FAO and WHO that it had authority under the Statutes to elaborate and adopt advisory codes of practice. This opinion is reproduced as Appendix III to this Report.
10. The Commission noted that, according to the provisions of the Format for Codex commodity standards, any parts of codes of practice intended to be made mandatory in standards should be quoted in full in the standards. Codes of practice or parts of codes of practice referred to in standards and not intended to be mandatory should be stated to be non-mandatory and quoted by reference.
11. The Commission considered the proposed amendments to the General Principles of the Codex Alimentarius which had been prepared by the Secretariat in the light of the discussions of the Codex Committee on General Principles on this subject at its third session. The text of the General Principles of the Codex Alimentarius on (i) Purpose of the Codex Alimentarius, (ii) Scope of the Codex Alimentarius and (iii) Nature of Codex Standards, as agreed upon by the Commission appears as Appendix IV to this Report.
12. The Commission had before it the recommendations of the Third Session of the Codex Committee on General Principles regarding acceptance of Codex Commodity Standards. The text proposed by the Codex Committee on General Principles was contained in Appendix II to its report. The Commission noted that no change had been proposed by the Codex Committee on General Principles to the texts on ‘full acceptance’ and ‘target acceptance’ which had been agreed to by the Commission at its Fifth Session. The Commission also noted the contents of the revised text proposed by the Codex Committee on General Principles entitled ‘acceptance with minor deviations’. The text of acceptance of Codex Commodity Standards agreed to by the Commission is set out in Appendix IV to this Report.
13. The delegation of the Federal Republic of Germany drew attention to the observations of their government with regard to the acceptance procedure contained in the reports of the Fifth Session of the Codex Alimentarius Commission and the Third Session of the Codex Committee on General Principles. The delegation pointed out that in their opinion the rules as now proposed by the Codex Committee on General Principles raised a number of difficult questions as to the legal implications and to the practicability of the procedure. This was due to the fact that the different types of acceptance as they had been developed over the course of a number of years would impose extensive obligations upon the accepting Member States; furthermore, the procedures lacked the principle of reciprocity which is generally recognized in the international field. The Federal Republic of Germany had envisaged from the very beginning a much more flexible procedure and was concerned that the provisions now under consideration would prevent many Member States from giving full acceptance. This would have a contrary result to the intentions of the Codex Alimentarius. The delegation of the Federal Republic of Germany therefore proposed that a group of legal experts should be set up in order to examine the various questions which still appeared to be unresolved, it being understood that this proposal should not in any way delay progress of work on standards. Several delegations supported this view. Other delegations considered that the procedure for the acceptance of standards had been carefully considered over a period of several years both by the Codex Committee on General Principles and the Commission itself. Moreover, the procedure for the acceptance of standards had not been tested in practice; it was important to accept the recommendations of the Codex Committee on General Principles that the acceptance procedure was provisional in nature and could be re-examined if necessary in the light of experience. The Commission agreed to adopt the acceptance procedure on a provisional basis and to see how it worked in practice when standards were sent to Governments for acceptance at Step 9.
14. The delegation of Ghana drew to the attention of the Commission some of the problems concerning the enforcement and control of food standards in developing countries. A number of these countries were not in a position to check fully on the standards of imported food, owing to limited technical facilities and trained personnel. The delegation of Ghana therefore proposed as a solution to these difficulties, and in order to prevent dumping of sub-standard foods, that foods moving in international trade which conformed to Codex standards should indicate this fact on the label. This matter had been examined by the Committee on General Principles, which was of the opinion that it would be premature to contemplate such an arrangement until a number of standards had been sent out to Governments for acceptance. It was noted that any country importing foodstuffs could require a certificate of guarantee from an acceptable source in the exporting country that the product was in conformity with the Codex standard.
15. It was emphasized that the provisions in paragraph B, in the second sentence of sub-paragraph C(i) and in sub-paragraph C(ii) were a request or exhortation to Governments and did not imply any binding obligation on Governments.
16. The Commission noted that the Codex Committee on General Principles had recommended a procedure for the acceptance of general standards. This procedure like that for the acceptance of Codex Commodity Standards was a provisional one and had been drawn up so that if the Commission adopted any general standards at Step 8 there would be available to Governments a procedure under which they could consider the acceptance of general standards. The Commission agreed that it would be desirable to have available a procedure for the acceptance of general standards, but, in considering the provisions of full acceptance of general standards, considered that this should be brought more into line with the full acceptance provisions for Codex commodity standards. The Commission considered in particular that the full acceptance provision should clearly indicate that the distribution of sound products conforming with the requirements of a general Codex standard would not be hindered by any legal or administrative provisions in the country accepting the general standard which related to the health of the consumer or to other food standards matters and which were covered by the requirements of the general standard. The Commission adopted the revised text contained in Appendix IV to this Report. The Commission agreed to adopt the acceptance procedure on a provisional basis and to see how it worked in practice when general standards were sent to Governments for acceptance at Step 9.
17. The Commission agreed to the text on withdrawal or amendment of acceptance, which had been proposed by the Codex Committee on General Principles at its Third Session. This text is reproduced in Appendix IV to this Report.
