International Food Standards
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January 18, 2006
Codex Alimentarius (also known as the CODEX) is an international food standards code used for the purposes of GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) and NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) and other international trade treaties. Countries must base their sanitary and phytosanitary measures on CODEX standards unless a scientific basis exists for a greater level of protection. WTO uses the CODEX as the reference for food standards and implementing GATT. Australian and international links provide interesting information on CODEX.
The Codex Alimentarius is developed through proposals from varied sources, which include individual member governments and the Codex committee system. Further, the process can involve the consultation of expert technical bodies in more than 160 countries, meaning that development of a new standard can take many years before adoption can occur. This may mean that, for the more contentious issues, the development and implementation of a new standard could take years.
The first two steps of the Codex process is the approval of a new standard for debate by the Commission and the first cut of the standard is drafted. At the third step, the draft standard is circulated to the relevant member governments and international organisations for comment. This is also the first stage at which the public is invited to comment on the proposal. Public comment is important and may influence the direction that the draft standard will take from that stage.
Next, member country comments are reviewed and are incorporated into the draft standard for further discussion. Then the Commission (or its Executive Committee) adopts the draft standard.
At the next stage, the draft text is once more circulated to the member countries for another round of comments. Once again, public comment is encouraged and it is recommended that comments be submitted at this stage or stage 3, as the only further time the standard is open for comment is at the final stage when amendments are likely to be minor in nature.
After further amendments to the draft, based on the comments received from the previous round of debate, the proposed standard is referred to the Commission for adoption. At the final stage, the member governments can debate the proposed standard a final time, but amendments are usually minor at this stage. Once a standard has gone through the process, it is incorporated into the Food Standards Code. With 200 standards in the Code currently, it continues to grow every year through this process.
Codex Alimentarius Homepage Link to official Codex Alimentarius Homepage
Link to the Australian Government’s official Codex Australia Homepage