ABSTRACT
This chapter assesses the European Union’s efforts to regulate industrial chemicals and identifies remaining challenges. The Regulation on the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals, which is commonly known as the REACH Regulation, has been the European Union’s core chemicals law since its adoption in 2006, replacing the previous patchwork of 40 individual pieces of regulation. The European Union (EU) took a bold approach, reinventing chemicals regulation by adopting a more systematic approach than previous EU and international laws. The REACH Regulation has been a learning process. Breaking with its former chemicals policy and going beyond what existed internally and externally meant for the EU chartering unknown territories. For this reason, it does not come as a surprise that the incredible complexity of chemical substances and the chemicals sector still leaves a number of remaining challenges for the EU to tackle.
