Globalizing Regulation: Reaching Beyond the Borders of Chemical Safety (original) (raw)

Global REACH?: The Potential International Impact of EU Chemicals Regulation

Regulation is one of the largest and most controversial pieces of legislation that the EU has ever adopted. It introduces a comprehensive and ambitious system for chemicals management, which moves away from a hazard-based approach toward a more risk-based approach. Furthermore, REACH introduces increased responsibilities for private actors and aims at encouraging more innovation. These new EU rules for the management of chemical substances are more comprehensive and more ambitious than current efforts at the international level. Therefore, this paper argues that there could be a mutual supplementation of international chemicals initiatives and REACH. On the one hand, REACH could complement international activities through the diffusion of its ambitious requirements and the data that it will produce. Diffusion could potentially happen faster than the international negotiation procedures and create facts that facilitate consensus finding for ensuing international agreement. Policy diffusion could also potentially reach a very broad scope of countries, including jurisdictions that are not part of current international agreements. On the other hand, international organisations could foster and enhance the diffusion process and institutionalise some of the REACH provisions. Furthermore, international agreements play an important role in taking particular account of the situation of developing countries and in providing a certain 'baseline' degree of safe international chemicals management. This paper first introduces the main features of the REACH Regulation. Then, it describes the international system of chemicals governance before discussing the contribution that REACH could make to this system. In the subsequent section, the different ways in which REACH requirements could diffuse to other jurisdictions and benefit international governance are analysed. These conceptual considerations are then applied to the US and California in a brief discussion of first signs of the potential influence of REACH. Since the REACH Regulation only entered into force on 1 June 2007 and will only be fully implemented by 2016, the full international impact of REACH will only become clear at a future point in time.

European Chemical Policy and the United States: The Impacts of REACH

2006

The European Union is moving toward adoption of its new Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals (REACH) policy, an innovative system of chemicals regulation that will provide crucial information on the safety profile of chemicals used in industry. Chemicals produced elsewhere, such as in the United States, and exported to Europe will have to meet the same standards as chemicals produced within the European Union. What is at stake for the U.S. is substantial: we estimate that chemical exports to Europe that are subject to REACH amount to about 14billionperyear,andaredirectlyandindirectlyresponsiblefor54,000jobs.RevenuesandemploymentofthismagnitudedwarfthecostsofcompliancewithREACH,whichwillamounttonomorethan14 billion per year, and are directly and indirectly responsible for 54,000 jobs. Revenues and employment of this magnitude dwarf the costs of compliance with REACH, which will amount to no more than 14billionperyear,andaredirectlyandindirectlyresponsiblefor54,000jobs.RevenuesandemploymentofthismagnitudedwarfthecostsofcompliancewithREACH,whichwillamounttonomorethan14 million per year. Even if, as the U.S. chemicals industry has argued, REACH is a needless mistake, it will be far more profitable to pay the modest compliance costs than to lose access to the enormous European market.

Reach, the New European Chemicals Policy: What For?

NEW SOLUTIONS: A Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health Policy, 2006

In October 2003 the European Commission adopted a proposal for a regulation aimed at radically recasting the Community policy on chemical substances. This proposed reform, known as REACH, sets up an overall system for the registration, evaluation, authorization, and restriction of chemicals. The objectives of REACH are to ensure a high level of protection for human health and the environment while strengthening the competitive position of the European chemical industry. How to strike that delicate balance remains riven with controversy. While intense lobbying by industry has substantially reduced the REACH requirements on the producers of chemicals, big changes in the management of chemical risks in Europe are still in the making. The reform which has yet to be approved by the Council and Parliament in a co-decision procedure represents a real opportunity to reduce the number of chemical-related occupational diseases.

Impacts on industry of Europe's emerging chemicals policy REACh

2008

For Europe, a new regime in chemicals regulation is about to start. After the proposal of the European Commission concerning the Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals (REACh) passed its readings in the European Parliament and some differences with the European Council of Ministers were resolved, the regulation will come into force in June 2007. This paper is focused on the question how serious the cost burdens for industry induced by REACh will be, and whether the New European Member States (NMS) which joined the European Union in May 2004 will be able to cope with the regulation. This evaluation has been done by assessing the legislative, administrative and economic framework in New Member States and by analysing real business cases in companies. The empirical showcase business impact studies are at the same time of interest for companies of EU-15 states, other European countries who may implement the regulation, and even for exporters of raw materials and chemicals outside Europe, who will also have to comply with REACh if they market in the European Community. The results give no indications that REACh adoption will bring significant drawbacks to companies in the NMS. The emerging regulation will bring challenges for individual companies, especially for small and medium-sized ones, but for the European chemical industry as a whole, there is no question that it will be able to cope with REACh burdens without losing its global competitiveness. r

Do the Same Conditions Ever Prevail? Globalizing National Regulation for International Trade

Countries craft their regulations in a specific national context. When foreign exporters apply this regulation to achieve market access, it becomes subject to a global array of implementation conditions. Several World Trade Organization (WTO) disputes have ruled that regulation failed to acknowledge the conditions of foreign exporters. The WTO Appellate Body has suggested that comparing conditions or 'situations' is part of not discriminating between foreign and domestic products, but the implications remain vague. In fact, pulling too hard on this thread could unravel the non-discrimination principle as it leads to its inherent contradiction: regulation will never treat all trade partners exactly the same precisely because of their diverse conditions. Further, suggesting that it should put a huge undue burden on regulators: deep integration run amok. Key WTO environment and development controversies centre on how to acknowledge differences between countries' situations and still achieve the formal equality that the system promises. The case law on situational discrimination feeds into these debates. This article proposes that the focus should be on how different situations influence the comparative effectiveness of a regulation in meeting its goal, an approach which delimits and clarifies.

Transatlantic Patterns of Risk Regulation. Implications for international trade and cooperation

2017

Introduction and overview 1.1 Regulatory variation and trade 1.2 Perceptions of EU and US regulation 1.3 The reality of EU and US regulation 1.4 Implications for trade agreements and regulatory cooperation 1.5 Outline of this report 2 Sectoral cases 2.1 Food safety risk regulation Genetically modified organisms (GMOs), hormones in beef and dairy, antibiotics in animal production, mad cow disease (BSE/vCJD), pesticides, organic food, chlorine-washed poultry, trans fats in food, unpasteurised dairy products, choking hazards 2.2 Automobile safety standards Vehicle safety regulation, compliance testing and enforcement for autos, future regulation of automated and autonomous vehicles, comparing traffic safety, automobile emissions 2.3 Chemical regulation Chemical regulation in the United States, chemical regulation in Europe, comparison of the regulation approaches, transatlantic cooperation and its impacts, conclusions 2.4 Pharmaceuticals licensing and reimbursement Introduction, context, current developments in Europe, current development in the US, conclusions: existing differences, current trends and emerging challenges 3 Conclusions and recommendations 3.1 A caveat on the effects of regulatory differences on industry practice 3.2 Findings 3.3 Implications for trade agreements and international regulatory cooperation 3.4 Learning from regulatory variation 3.5 Toward planned adaptive regulation