Traceability

The major global organizations that develop that develop open, international standards for traceability in global trade are the UN Centre for Trade Facilitation and electronic Business (UN/CEFACT) of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and GS1.

In the United Nations system UN/CEFACT is the focal point for the development of trade facilitation recommendations and standards for electronic business. UN/CEFACT is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE).  UN/CEFACT standards are developed by international experts from governments and the private sector. Many international organizations such as CITES, WCO, ISO, FAO, IATA and GS1 participate in the work of UN/CEFACT. 

Within UN/CEFACT a specialised group of experts develops the standards specific to agriculture trade. This group also takes into account the specific CITES standardization requirements.

The expert group developed eCERT, an international standard for electronic sanitary and phytosanitary certificates. The CITES ePermitting toolkit which defines the  structure for electronic CITES permits is based on the eCERT standard. CoP decision 15.54 encourages Parties to use this standard for electronic permit exchanges. Similarly, the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) recommends National Plant Protection Organizations to use the eCERT standard for exchange of electronic Phytosanitary certificates.

The UN/CEFACT expert group on agriculture trade  also developed a standard for Traceability of Animals and Fish. The scope of this standard has been extended to include agriculture produce in general and the expert group has agreed to also include CITES traceability requirements.

The UN/CEFACT traceability standard for animals and fish is fully compatible with electronic CITES permits and Phytosanitary certificates as well as well as electronic transport and customs documents that use the UN/CEFCAT suite of standards. Electronic information from Fishery Management Organizations that use the UN/CEFACT FLUX[1] can also be used in traceability systems that are base don the UN/CEFACT traceability standard.

The UN/CEFACT traceability standard is compatible with ISO/IEC 19987 (Electronic Product Code Information Services) which itself is based on the Electronic Product Code Information Service (EPCIS) traceability standard of GS1.

GS1 is a not for profit association that is represented in 112 countries around the world, best know for its barcodes for product identification. GS1 standards are widley used  in manufacturing and in the retail industry and ow-cost solutions for barcoding and RFID tagging are available.  As the UN/CEFACT traceability standard is compatible with GS1 EPCIS these solutions can be used for UN/CEFACT based traceability systems.

The UN/CEFACT traceability standard is a technical standard that describes the data formats for traceability information and how this information is exchanged and does not provide guidance on how to design a traceability system. To support Government agencies to design traceability system UNECE published  the Framework to design traceability systems for cross border trade as a guide to use traceability for sustainable trade. UN/CEFACT plans to develop a recommendation to Governments to apply this concept when planning traceability systems that include Government agencies as stakeholders. 

Table of relevant documents of international standard settings organizations (preliminary list)

The CoP requested the Secretariat to collect information from Parties on planned and ongoing traceability projects and to make this information available on the CITES Website (CoP Decisions 17.154 and 17.155). In notification 2017/38 the Secretariat asked Parties to provide this information.

The following table provides links to information on CITES traceability and traceability projects.  Parties that wish to provide additional documents should contact the Secretariat with mail to [email protected]