During the 33rd session of the Working Party on Regulatory Cooperation and Standardization Policies (WP.6), member States will be invited to elect a chair and vice-chairs for a two-year mandate each. The election procedures have been published below since August 2023.

The secretariat has received the following nominations from member States:

• Candidate for Chair: Sweden, Ms. Heidi Lund [Bio]
• Candidate for Vice-Chair: Canada, Ms. Gabrielle White [Bio]
• Candidate for Vice-Chair: Georgia, Mr. Davit Tkemaladze [Bio]
• Candidate for Vice-Chair: Israel, Mr. Marco Pangallo [Bio]
• Candidate for Vice-Chair: USA, Mr. Anthony Quinn [Bio]

The WP.6 Terms of Reference calls for a Chairperson and at least two vice-chairpersons (paragraph 10). Member States will be invited to either elect at least two of the four candidates for Vice-Chair, or elect all four candidates by acclamation.

Information on the election process

The mandates of the chairperson and the vice-chairpersons (the Bureau) of the Working Party on regulatory Cooperation and Standardization Policies (WP.6) end at the 33rd Annual Session on 23-24 November 2023.

Elections for the WP.6 Bureau will take place on 23 November 2023. The ECE member States who are physically present at the Annual Session will elect a chairperson and at least two vice-chairpersons. The term of office is two years.

UN Member States who wish to put forward a candidate for these elections may do so through their country delegation to the United Nations in Geneva with a short bio about the candidate. The deadline to submit nominations is 9 October 2023 (45 days prior to the meeting) sent to the secretary of WP.6: [email protected].

Received candidatures’ bios will be shared on the event website 30 days prior to the election.

Responsibilities of the WP.6 Bureau

The WP.6 bureau (comprised of a chairperson and at least two vice-chairpersons) is responsible to oversee the implementation of the decisions taken at past annual sessions – including the rolling out of the annual programme of work – and to prepare future annual sessions. The bureau reviews all project proposals for new work items under the working party and confirms the proposed project leader or nominates a different project leader in consultation with the relevant subgroup chair.

The WP.6 bureau meets at least once in between annual sessions and organizes at least one annual meeting of the WP.6 leadership (comprised of both the WP.6 bureau and the subgroup bureaux).

The WP.6 chairperson presides over the meetings of the WP.6 bureau, the WP.6 leadership and the WP.6 annual session. The WP.6 chairperson also reviews and submits a number of documents to the annual session (including the agenda, the programme of work and any official recommendations). If the WP.6 chairperson is unable to complete these tasks, one of the WP.6 vice-chairpersons would complete them.

For more information, please see the Revised terms of reference of the Working Party on Regulatory Cooperation and Standardization Policies (ECE/CTCS/WP.6/2022/11) and the Summary of working practices for the Working Party on Regulatory Cooperation and Standardization Policies (ECE/CTCS/WP.6/2023/12).

Item 3 Matters arising

Item 4 Advisory Group on Market Surveillance (MARS)

Item 5 Group of Experts on Risk Management in Regulatory Systems (GRM)

Item 6 Ad Hoc Team of Specialists on Standardization and Regulatory Techniques (START)

Item 7 Team of Specialists on Gender-Responsive Standards (ToR-GRS)

Item 8 (a) Report on Capacity Building

Item 8 (d) Activities of other United Nations Economic Commission for Europe bodies and other international organizations of interest to WP.6:

The panel session "How to target continuous compliance" will take place as a face-to-face meeting.