[1] as "the process of evaluating biological or other scientific and economic evidence to determine whether an organism is a pest, whether it should be regulated, and the strength of any phytosanitary measures to be taken against it".
In accordance with the WTO Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement the IPPC aims to protect plants while limiting interference with international trade.
[6][7] A key principle of the IPPC is that contracting parties (signatories) provide ‘technical justification’ to support phytosanitary decision making affecting trade.
The responsibility for conducting pest risk analysis sits within government, specifically within a country's National Plant Protection Organization (NPPO) and comes as an obligation when countries become contracting parties to the IPPC (IPPC Article IV, 2a).
[12] However, many countries including Australia,[13] New Zealand[14] and the USA,[15] have developed procedures to assess the pest risks associated with the import of plant commodities.
The assessment should consider pest population dynamics and the natural mobility of the pest and take into account potential spread via wind, water, soil, seed and pollen, and insect, fungal or nematode vectors as well as spread via human activities such as movement of host material.
In this step the potential impacts that could be expected to result from a pest's introduction and spread is identified, described and, as much as possible, quantified.
Phytosanitary measures should accord with IPPC principles of necessity, managed risk, minimal impact, transparency, harmonization, non-discrimination and technical justification.
The level of detail in a pest risk analysis will be limited by the amount and quality of information available, the tools, and time available before a decision is required.
Quantitative and qualitative techniques are used in pest risk analysis but pest risk analysis need only be as complex as is required by the circumstances to support a phytosanitary decision and provide the necessary technical justification to defend decisions regarding phytosanitary measures.
Uncertainty is always part of pest risk analysis;[41] very often there is a lack of data necessary to reach secure conclusions.
In most cases analyses performed during pest risk analysis use historical data to forecast potential future events.