In 1992 the Rio de Janeiro 'Earth Summit' was the main attraction for all of those involved with health and safety, transport and environmental regulations. At that meeting, the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the United Nations (UN), the Organization for Economic and Cooperation Development (OECD) committed themselves into a Global Harmonized System (GHS) for the Classification of Chemicals and of all related documentation, mainly the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) and Labels. Many government bodies adopted the concept as well. As we start this new millennium, many important conclusions have been drawn and intense discussions are still taking place. This communication will first try to establish the main conclusions. We will then present how a 'Universal Safety Document' could be built in order to include ALL required documents to ease the import-export of chemicals in Europe, Asia-Pacific, Africa and the Americas. We will bring up questions and possible answers on the impacts of such a Globally Harmonised System on our economy.
Back at the 1992 Earth Summit, the international organisations and OECD countries gave themselves the mandate to harmonize all classification systems and the derived documentation having to do with chemicals. Agenda 21 stipulated that by year 2000 we should have a proposal for a UNIQUE system of classification for ALL chemicals (hazardous materials) and that we should have a UNIQUE set of documents (mainly the Material Safety Data Sheets) to transmit information to specialists, workers and the general public.
As we already are mid-2000, let us look at what has been done, what has been harmonized and what impacts we can anticipate on the actual laws and regulations as well as on the global exchange of chemicals. Table 1 below shows the list of the main organisations and their respective responsibilities in this huge mandate. It also shows the main topics to be covered by each group. The sum of that entire work fulfils the 1992 mandate. Two things are sure. One: all work and consensus will be part of a non-binding instrument proposed to the countries of the world. Two: each country will have to adopt or modify its own legislation to enforce whatever part of the consensus they agree with and wish to enforce on their territory. This critical situation could be, we believe, a serious threat to the ever adoption of the Global Harmonized System (GHS).
Table 1: Organisations and responsibilities in view of the Global Harmonized System (GHS) (available in full paper).
Several external groups of experts also contribute to specific studies and reports. The also make specific recommendations. All their work is presented to the Coordination Group of the Harmonized Chemical Classification System (CGHCCS).
