World Forum for the Harmonization of Vehicle Regulations | Session 184 | 22-24 Jun 2021
Web conference
Agenda Item 13.
Monitoring of the 1998 Agreement: Reports of the Contracting Parties on the transposition of UN GTRs and their amendments into their national/regional law

129. AC.3 noted the information, as of June 2021, on the status of the Agreement of the Global Registry and of the Compendium of Candidates (ECE/TRANS/WP.29/1073/Rev.30), the status of the priorities of the 1998 Agreement (based on WP.29-184-06 as reproduced in Annex V to this report) and items on which the exchange of views should continue. AC.3 noted that notifications and the mandatory reports on the transposition process through their Permanent Missions in Geneva to the secretariat, are publicly accessible at: wiki.unece.org/display/TRAN/Home. AC.3 recalled its agreement to always send the above-mentioned reports and notifications through their Permanent Missions in Geneva and directly to the secretariat (email: edoardo.gianotti@un.org) to ensure updating of the status document, which is the monitoring tool of the Agreement.

130. AC.3 noted that since March 2020, no status reports or final notifications were submitted to the secretariat. Therefore, AC.3 warmly reiterated its request to its Contracting Parties to send the above-mentioned status report and notifications as one of the main obligations of the 1998 Agreement. Moreover, it was noted that this action would imply that representatives would provide the secretariat with the coordinates of their corresponding focal points to the agreement, appointed in their capitals to draft the reports and notifications to keep them informed in the exchange of information through the above-mentioned website. In addition, the representative of the European Union suggested to look for solutions to streamline the submission of status reports/final notifications (e.g. transposition of UN GTRs through the adoption of corresponding UN Regulations).

131. The representative of the United States of America argued that a de facto transposition of UN GTRs through UN Regulations might not be ostensibly acceptable since differences exist between UN GTRs and UN Regulations on the same subjects and only tight harmonization could provide the same level playing field.

132. The representative of OICA stressed the crucial importance of an update situations on the process of transposition into Contracting Parties as a whole, including precise information as to the legal status of the UN GTRs implementation (mandatory, alternative, …).

133. Finally, AC.3 noted that according to Articles 7.4 to 7.4.1. of the Agreement, status reports should be provided to the secretariat for each one-year period if action or no action had been taken in the above-mentioned process and that no specific layout to provide such information was requested by the Agreement.