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ISO/IEC Guide 65 Accreditation
ISO65 (or EN45011 as it is
known in its European version) is the International Standards Organisation
guideline 'General requirements for bodies operating product certification
systems'.
It became important for
organic certification bodies when the European Regulation 2092/91 added the
requirement for compliance under its Article 9.11. Under the new amendments
to EC 2092/91 of December 2006 (amending regulation EC
1991/2006) ) all EU-based
certification bodies will have to be formally accredited against ISO65 whereas non-EU
certification bodies may choose between compliance and equivalence routes
(see European equivalence assessment).
Other countries (eg. Japan and Canada)
have based their system on ISO65 requirements but have added additional
clauses.
ISO65 accreditation is for those
certification bodies who require to demonstrate their competence for
regulatory reasons and must be performed against a reference standard. From
the IOAS perspective this may be any organic standard. Standards assessment
is not involved. The reference standard may be a regulation (often EC
2092/91 or a national standard) but may also be your own private standard.
If you choose the latter but want to demonstrate its equivalence to a
specific regulation, IOAS offers this possibility as well and it is best to
establish this at the time of application.
ISO/IEC Guide ISO65 is available for
purchase from the
ISO web site
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