There are two Codes of Practice, namely the Australian and New Zealand Code of Practice and the International Code of Practice. The RTAC Scheme Rules defines the requirements for bodies providing audit and certification to these Codes of Practice.
The Australian and New Zealand Code of Practice is the standard against which ART Units in Australia and New Zealand are audited. In Australia, the Prohibition of Human Cloning for Reproduction and the Regulation of Human Embryo Research Amendment Act 2006 defines an accredited ART centre as a ‘person or body accredited to carry out assisted reproductive technology by the Reproductive Technology Accreditation Committee of the Fertility Society of Australia’. As a result, it is currently an offence in Australian Commonwealth law to use human embryos in any way without RTAC licensing. New Zealand has the HART Act 2004 which governs the delivery of ART services.
The International Code of Practice is the standard against which ART Units are audited in countries outside the jurisdiction of the regulatory laws of Australia and New Zealand, and was updated in 2023 to replace the previous version of 2018.
An ART organisation’s compliance with the RTAC Code of Practice must be reviewed on a regular basis, with the review being conducted as an audit by an independent Certification Body (CB) that is approved by the Joint Accreditation System of Australia and New Zealand (JAS-ANZ) or the Fertility Society of Australia.