Jones, L.B. orcid.org/0000-0002-8623-1218 and Burns, C.J. (2024) REACHing for divergence?—UK chemical regulation post‐Brexit. Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management, 20 (5). pp. 1529-1538. ISSN 1551-3777
Abstract
On 1 January 2021, the United Kingdom formally exited the European Union (EU; Brexit) and ceased to be subject to EU chemical regulation requirements. Before Brexit, UK chemical policy was regulated largely by the EU. With its large internal market, sophisticated regulatory capability, and stringent regulatory framework, the EU has become the world's leading regulatory state, regularly influencing global industrial decisions and practices. At the time of writing, there has been limited academic analysis of the implications of Brexit for UK chemical regulation. More than two years post-Brexit, we have the opportunity to assess UK chemical regulation and revisit early expectations about regulatory divergence. This article takes the EU's Regulation on the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation, and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) as a case study to analyze patterns of post-Brexit regulatory divergence, thereby providing one of the first analyses of the implications of Brexit on UK chemical regulation. Through the analysis and review of key documents and reports (n = 99), this article assesses the extent to which UK and EU regulatory (REACH) regimes are beginning to diverge and discusses the potential implications of any divergence for the United Kingdom. We find that the UK and EU chemical regulatory regimes are now evolving independently and provide clear, empirical evidence of an emerging divergence in regulatory decisions, ambitions, and approaches. The evidence suggests that the United Kingdom is currently unable to keep pace with EU developments, lacking the capacity, expertise, and capability of its EU counterparts, raising the prospect of further divergence in the future. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2024;00:1–10. © 2024 The Authors. Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry (SETAC).
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2024 The Authors. Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry (SETAC). This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | Brexit; Brussels Effect; Chemical regulation; Regulatory divergence; Risk assessment |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Department of Politics and International Relations (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 14 May 2024 12:03 |
Last Modified: | 20 Nov 2024 10:53 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1002/ieam.4941 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:212471 |