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

The central question of this paper is whether and how the new EU chemicals Regulation REACH could play a role in international chemicals governance. The REACH 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 to a risk-based approach. The introduction of an element of increased responsibility for private actors to provide information about specific properties of chemicals, to ensure that this information is used to assess possible risks and to ensure that the risks are appropriately managed are expected to lead to more anticipatory approach to chemicals management. Moreover, the application of the same registration, evaluation and authorisation requirements for all, existing and new, chemicals and the substitution obligation where possible, are expected to provide incentives for increased innovation activities.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. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]