The 18th meeting of the Chemical Review Committee of the Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade (CRC18) and the 18th meeting of the Persistent Organic Pollutants Review Committee of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPRC18) were held back-to-back in Rome, Italy, from September 19 to 30, 2022. The Chinese delegation attended the meeting online.

    CRC18 considered and adopted the decision guidance documents for isoprothiolane and terbutafos, and recommended them to the Conference of the Parties for inclusion in Annex III of the Convention; The meeting also considered the Notice of Final Regulatory Action (FRA) for 10 pesticides, including chlormequat, carbaryl, carbon tetrachloride, dimefon, chlorpromphos, methyl parathion, mirex, paraquat, and bisulfur. Among them, two PIC countries submitted FRA for methyl bromide and paraquat respectively. The meeting considered that they met the requirements of Annex II of the Convention, decided to establish a working group during the intersessional period to draft the decision guidance document for the above pesticides, and recommended that the Parties take action to list the two agricultural drugs in Annex III of the Convention; The meeting decided not to take further action against five pesticides, namely mirex, chlormequat, methyl parathion, carbon tetrachloride, and dimefon, in view of the fact that they do not meet the requirements of Annex II to the Convention; The meeting failed to reach an agreement on the FRA review of three pesticides, namely, carbaryl, fenaprofos, and endosulfur, and decided to postpone the review to the next CRC meeting.

    The POPRC18 meeting reviewed and approved the risk management evaluation draft and specific exemption of Declone and UV-328; The draft risk profile of chlorinated paraffins, long-chain perfluorocarbonic acids and their salts and related compounds with a carbon chain length of C14-17 and a chlorination degree of 45% or more (by weight) was reviewed and approved; The meeting did not reach an agreement on the draft risk profile of chlorpyrifos and decided to postpone it to POPRC19 for further consideration.