Academic

Sachs on Transnational Law & Chemical Regulaton

By Lawrence Solum

Noah Sachs (University of Richmond School of Law) has posted Jumping the Pond: Transnational Law and the Future of Chemical Regulation (Vanderbilt Law Review, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

Just as domestic pollution can cause transnational externalities, domestic environmental regulation can create transnational ripple effects in other jurisdictions. In this Article, I argue that chemical regulation ? long a weak link in the network of U.S. environmental laws ? will likely be reshaped and reformed through the extra-territorial ripple effects of new European Union legislation. Contributing to both international law and environmental law scholarship, this Article shows how transnational information flows can be harnessed to end the long-standing drought of data on chemical toxicity in the United States. In Part I of this Article, I critique the U.S. chemical regulatory regime, arguing that a lack of toxicity testing and high statutory barriers to regulation have created problematic data gaps that have undermined public health and environmental protections. I then argue that the EU legislation offers a superior model for addressing chemical risks. The EU law makes toxicity testing a default requirement for chemicals produced or imported in Europe and shifts the burden of proof on chemical safety from government to industry. As a result of these innovations, this next-generation chemical regulatory regime rewards knowledge, rather than ignorance. In Part II of this Article, I show how the EU legislation is creating 'regulatory turbulence' ? extra-territorial effects on the political and informational terrain for chemical regulation in the United States. Information on chemical risks, disclosed in Europe, will help to close longstanding data gaps in the United States and may help to build support for reform of U.S. law. Even if the United States does not enact major legislative reforms, its chemical marketplace will increasingly be governed by European norms. Chemical regulation is therefore a case study in how transnational law and global information networks are shaping the future of American environmental law.

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on June 15, 2009 (boomark / email).