Toward a Toxic Partnership

This report by the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) critiques the European Commission's proposed approach to chemicals under the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). The author argues that the EU's vision, which aligns closely with chemical industry proposals, threatens to obstruct the substitution of harmful substances with safer alternatives and could freeze progress in regulating toxic chemicals.

• The European Commission's vision for TTIP in the chemicals sector is heavily influenced by industry proposals from the American Chemistry Council (ACC) and the European Chemical Industry Council (Cefic), incorporating five of eight specific industry suggestions.
• Proposed cooperation in prioritizing chemicals for assessment may reduce or delay the number of substances undergoing risk assessment and management. The report notes that there is minimal overlap between existing US and EU priority lists, with only ten chemicals overlapping out of over 230.
• The report warns that efforts to align chemical classification and labelling could lead to lower protections in US states that have implemented stricter requirements than national or Global Harmonised System (GHS) standards, specifically citing California.
• Regulatory cooperation on 'new and emerging issues' is viewed as a threat to the regulation of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) and nanomaterials. The US Trade Representative (USTR) has identified EU measures on EDCs and a potential EU-wide register for nanomaterials as potential trade barriers.
• Proposed changes to information sharing and the protection of confidential business information (CBI) could decrease transparency and the public's right-to-know, particularly by requiring industry approval for the exchange of information between regulators.
• The report identifies several 'known unknowns' in the Commission's position, including the lack of detail on Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provisions, a rumored sectoral annex on pesticides, and the implications of Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) and Sanitary Phytosanitary (SPS) measures.

APA

Center for International Environmental Law (2014). Toward a Toxic Partnership. https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/ToxicPartnership_Jun2014.pdf

Chicago

Center for International Environmental Law. Toward a Toxic Partnership. 2014. https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/ToxicPartnership_Jun2014.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Center for International Environmental Law |title=Toward a Toxic Partnership |date=July 2014 |url=https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/ToxicPartnership_Jun2014.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{centerforinternationalenvironmentallaw2014toward, author = {{Center for International Environmental Law}}, title = {{Toward a Toxic Partnership}}, institution = {Center for International Environmental Law}, year = {2014}, month = jul, url = {https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/ToxicPartnership_Jun2014.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }