WORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONG/SPS/GEN/439
27 October 2003
(03-5704)
Committee on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Original:  English
EQUIVALENCE
Statement by the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC)
at the meeting of 28-30 October 2003
1. The first International Standard for Phytosanitary Measures (ISPM) was adopted by the Food
and Agriculture Organization’s Conference in 1993.  ISPM No. 1, Principles of Plant Quarantine as
Related to International Trade, states the general principle of equivalence in the context of the IPPC
is:  Countries shall recognize as being equivalent those phytosanitary measures that are not identical
but which have the same effect.
2. In addition, the general principle of equivalen ce is already used in regard to phytosanitary
measures.
3. The Interim Commission on Phytosanitary Measures’ (ICPM) work program identified both
Efficacy of Measures and Equivalence as priorities for ISPMs.  It was believed that an ISPM on
Efficacy of Measures was a pre-requisite to an ISPM on Equivalence.
4. An Expert Working Group (EWG) met to discuss Efficacy of Measures and produced a draft
ISPM which was submitted to the Standards Committee. The Standards Committee raised some
additional issues to be addressed and returned the draft back to the EWG.  These issues will be further
discussed and the resulting draft ISPM will be resubmitted to the Standards Committee in May 2004.
5. In September 2003, an EWG was convened to work on an ISPM on Equivalence.  The report
from this meeting has not been finalized.  The final report will be presented to the Standards
Committee for review in May 2004 .
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