International Chemicals Regulation: There's More Just Beyond Our REACH

The landscape of chemicals regulation is rapidly changing in the United States and abroad, and nowhere more so than in Europe. The US Toxic Substances Control Act, once the global benchmark, is being supplanted by new paradigms that take different approaches to hazard and risk. Of these perhaps the most far-reaching is the European Union's scheme captioned "Registration, Evaluation, and Authorization of Chemicals", or REACH, which would impose a specific duty of care on substance producers/importers and downstream users to avoid causing harm to humans or the environment, and require substitution of less harmful alternatives for the most dangerous chemicals. This panel will survey recent developments in this area of regulation, with particular emphasis on the implications of REACH for companies doing business in Europe.