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A SLOW BURN MULTIMODAL • THE 2021/22 REGULATORY BIENNIUM HAS STARTED SLOWLY, WITH DISCUSSIONS IN GENEVA HAMPERED BY COVID RESTRICTIONS AND COST PRESSURES ORGANISATIONS AROUND the world continue to struggle to do their jobs while observing hygiene controls. That goes for the regulatory authorities just as much as for commercial corporations. For those working at the UN’s Palais des Nations in Geneva, things are even worse: the UN’s own liquidity crisis, together with renovation work going on under the strategic heritage plan have cut down the time available. Furthermore, the desire to meet in a hybrid format, to allow the participation of those delegates unable or unwilling to make
To make decisions on international provisions, including the UN Recommendations on the Transport of Dangerous Goods (or ‘Model Regulations’), it is also necessary to have full, live interpretation available. But Covid restrictions have impacted interpreters too and, at its first session of the new biennium, the UN Sub-committee of Experts on the Transport of Dangerous Goods (TDG) was only able to hold one day with interpretation. Duane Pfund, international program coordinator at the US Pipeline and Hazardous
the trip to Switzerland, is also making it hard to find suitable facilities at the venue.
Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) and chair of the Sub-committee, explained during the Labelmaster DG Symposium this past September that the hybrid format places other restrictions on the work of the Subcommittee. A lot of progress is made not during plenary sessions but on the side,
THE PALAIS DES NATIONS HAS BEEN A QUIET PLACE DURING THE PANDEMIC
HCB MONTHLY | NOVEMBER 2021
over coffee or in break-out working groups. Those interactions are simply not possible at a hybrid meeting and Pfund said he would like to get back to in-person meetings as soon as possible, acknowledging that it is unlikely to happen this year. Bearing all this in mind, the 58th session of the TDG Sub-committee was restricted to five days, though a number of decisions were taken, mostly topics that had been held over from the previous sessions. Meanwhile, as Pfund highlighted in his presentation during the DG Symposium, the experts are making progress on a broad-based project to improve the usefulness and recognition of the Model Regulations. BACK TO BASICS One element of this is making it clear what the regulators want from the regulated community. While a lot of effort goes into making the rules as clear as possible, the intent is not always obvious. Pfund envisages some sort of ‘unified interpretation’, akin to those provided by PHMSA in the US, to explain what changes to the regulations are designed to achieve. Alongside that effort, the Sub-committee wants to know how countries around the world are applying the Model Regulations;
