International Response to EU Chemical Regulations: From Challenge to Adjustment

• In Event: Bayesian Case Studies in International and Comparative Politics

Abstract

In 2006, the EU enacted a comprehensive chemical safety reform called REACH (Registration, Evaluation and Authorization for Chemicals), which imposed significant costs on business. This paper employs Bayesian strategies to test three rival hypotheses on what led to the success of REACH in terms of pushing greater stringency while limiting competitive damage to Europe’s chemical industry: the Global Civil Society Thesis, the Brussels Effect Thesis, and a Global Political Strategy Thesis. The Global Civil Society thesis (Peter Haas and others) explains trends towards increased global governance of environmental health and safety as caused by the growth of knowledge-based networks of global experts and elite advocates who develop a common view and consensus around needed reforms. This consensus then pushes IGOs, INGOs and national governments to implement changes that reflect the ideas of experts. The Brussels Effect thesis (Bradford 2020) looks to explain the institutional and economic factors that have allowed Europe to emerge in the early 2000s as a particularly energetic driver of reforms in global governance of economic actors. Three elements of the Brussels Effect have to do with the institutional sources of European regulatory power-- authority over a sufficiently large market, sufficient regulatory capacity, and preference for high stringency—and two elements have to do with the economic structure of the product or service markets the reforms target—i.e. they are “inelastic” and “non-divisible” (essentially, markets where the costs of complying with two regimes is greater than complying with a single more stringent regime). The Global Political Strategy thesis states that the political strategy used by the economic power seeking to reform global governance also matters and the power of structural institutional and economic factors may not fully explain regulatory success. In the case of chemical safety reform, the power of Brussels Effect factors alone does not explain key evidence in the REACH case. The author’s case analysis shows that a lack of expert consensus on the substance of chemical risk policy and the influence of economic and political arguments for the advantages of greater stringency make the Global Civil Society thesis a less persuasive explanation than the Brussels Effect thesis for Europe’s success in triggering wave of chemical safety reform worldwide. At the same time, the EU’s distinctive political strategy played an essential role in overcoming early political opposition to REACH at a time before Brussels Effect factors could influence the preferences of key actors outside of Europe. Without the EU’s success in developing and implementing a consistent and consistent political strategy over many years, the tightening of chemical safety standards may not have occurred when and how it did.

Author

• Richard Pasquier