Reach: Combining Harmonization with Dynamism in the Regulation of Chemicals

Abstract

Europe has a new Chemicals Agency. Its establishment is inextricably tied to the emergence in Europe of an ambitious new framework for the regulation of chemicals. This framework is known by the acronym REACH. The establishment of the European Agency, and the European-level harmonization of chemicals policy seems to mark an important step in the direction of a centralization of regulatory power. However, it is the argument of this chapter that reality is more complex, more subtle, and certainly more promising. The European Agency does not stand on high at the apex of a hierarchically organized system for the regulation of chemicals. It forms part of a system of governance which is intensely fractured. Power is shared among a multiplicity of actors, operating at different levels, and in the private as well as the public sphere. No single actor has autonomous decision-making power. Rather, each is empowered, in different circumstances in different ways, to play a role in maintaining the dynamic quality of regulation in the face of information deficits and uncertain risks. Different actors can play a role in seeking to ensure the continuous generation of new and better information about risk and about the mitigation of risk, and in seeking to prompt regulatory decisions which are appropriately responsive to this. This fracturing of power creates a governance framework which is complex. But it is also a framework which seeks to combine, in a novel way, harmonization with dynamism, and uniformity with structures for regulatory learning.

Keywords: REACH, chemicals regulation, EU Law, Environmental Law

JEL Classification: K32, K33