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DIVERSION AHEAD ROAD • DESPITE ADMINISTRATIVE DIFFICULTIES, WP15 HAS AGREED MORE THAN 100 PAGES OF AMENDMENTS FOR THE 2023 TEXT OF ADR. MORE MAY YET BE ADDED AT ITS NEXT SESSION
enter into force, although Georgia has recently ratified the protocol and was due to submit its notification to the UN Office of Legal Affairs. Before the meeting began, there was a tribute to the victims of the road tanker explosion in Sierra Leone the week before, which killed at least 90 people; the Working Party noted that it was too early to draw any conclusions from the incident and invited the country’s authorities to share the findings of its investigation.
THE UN ECONOMIC Commission for Europe’s (ECE) Working Party on the Transport of Dangerous Goods (WP15) held its 110th session this past 8 to 12 November in hybrid format; Covid-19 response measures, the UN’s liquidity crisis, ongoing renovation work at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, and restrictions on the availability of interpreters all made it once more difficult to arrange a lengthy session and the experts had only a week to complete their work. Their agenda was very similar to their counterparts on the
The meeting was chaired by Ariane Roumier (France) with Alfonso Simoni (Italy) as vice-chair; it was attended by representatives of 24 countries, as well as from Brazil, Egypt and Sierra Leone. Also in attendance were the EU, the Intergovernmental Organisation for International Carriage by Rail (OTIF), six non-governmental organisations and the EuroMed Transport Support Project (TSP). The Working Party welcomed the participation of Brazil and Egypt and encouraged them to continue to participate at
BEFORE THE BALL With the Sierra Leone incident in their minds, the Working Party was presented with a final draft of the Road Map for accession to and implementation of ADR, developed by the Inland Transport Committee, WP15’s parent body. The Road Map aims to help authorities in those countries interested in becoming contracting parties in preparing for and implementing the regulations. The Working Party welcomed the revised version of the Road Map and recognised its
RID Committee of Experts standing working group (HCB February 2022, page 58): to complete, insofar as was possible, the amendments that will enter into force in the 2023 edition of ADR, the international regulations for the transport of dangerous goods by road.
future sessions. Under the Rules of Procedure, any UN member state may participate in its activities and all countries wishing to accede to ADR were urged to do so. The Working Party noted that 13 contracting parties have still not deposited the required instruments to allow the 1993 protocol to
usefulness as a tool for promoting ADR and the work of the Working Party both in countries that are not yet contracting parties and in the national administrations of countries that already are. It asked the secretariat to publish the final Road Map in electronic form to facilitate its dissemination.
HCB MONTHLY | MARCH 2022
