International Code of Conduct on Pesticide Management: guidance on data requirements for the ‎registration of pesticides, 2nd ed.

Overview

This Code of Conduct provides guidance for defining and applying data requirements for the registration of pesticides. The guidance is designed primarily for use by government authorities in charge of pesticide registration but may also be useful for the applicants for the authorization of pesticides.

This guidance is a revision of the version published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) in January 2013.

This guidance was prepared in compliance with the International Code of Conduct on Pesticide Management (Code of Conduct), 1 which sets out a framework and voluntary standards of conduct for pesticide management. Endorsed by FAO, WHO, governments, pesticide producers, non-governmental organizations and other stakeholders, the Code of Conduct outlines their shared responsibility to promote best practices and risk reduction throughout the pesticide life cycle. The Code of Conduct thereby establishes the commitment and moral obligation of the stakeholders to comply with the agreed standards of conduct and to assume their respective responsibilities. This includes governments’ responsibility to clearly define the data needed for the registration of a pesticide and evaluate the pesticide based on such data, and the pesticide industry’s responsibility to generate scientifically sound data and make those available to governments for the evaluation and re-evaluation of a pesticide.

This guidance was prepared with the support of the FAO/WHO Joint Meeting on Pesticide Management (JMPM) to provide further guidance on the provisions of the Code of Conduct that are related to data requirements. It reflects the joint FAO/WHO approach to pesticide management, thus addressing data requirements in both agricultural and public health settings. An overview of the most relevant provisions of the Code of Conduct related to data requirements for pesticides is given in Section 2 of this guidance.