Report References to occupational exposures Challenges faced by workers The Special Rapporteur noted how, in realizing the workers’ right to information, the EU’s Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) Regulation has a (A/HRC/33/41/Add.2) number of noteworthy features. First, it contains tiered health and safety requirements for all (2016, mission carried out industrial substances produced or imported at or above one ton per year. This pragmatic in 2015) requirement, known as “no-data, no-market”, shifts the burden of proof away from public authorities and onto relevant businesses. Second, it requires industry to share information on the use of hazardous industrial chemicals up and down the supply chain to help ensure that substances are being used safely and information is current. In this way, the right to information also contributes to workers’ and consumers’ rights. Third, health and safety summaries are made available to Governments around the world, enabling those with fewer resources to avoid duplication of efforts and enhance cooperation. Fourth, consumers have the right to contact businesses to inquire whether a chemical linked to cancer, hormone disruption or other health and environmental hazards are found in certain products if they are on the “candidate list”. Finally, the information generated is enabling businesses to transition to safer chemicals and safer products. These are good practices for the realization of the right to information about industrial chemicals, and implementation of the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. • Inadequate standards of protection • Limited progress in prevention of exposure • Opaque supply chains and the transfer of hazardous work • Failures to realize the right to information One of the most innovative features of recent changes to European Union pesticides laws is the prohibition on the use of certain pesticides linked with cancer, reproductive effects, hormone (endocrine) disruption and other adverse health effects, and certain physical properties. The approach of European Union pesticides legislation is risk-based, in that the exposure levels and corresponding risks to worker health, as well as human health and the environment more broadly, cannot be adequately assured for certain pesticides with such properties. This approach to pesticides is grounded in the principle of precaution, provided in the Treaty of Lisbon amending the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty establishing the European Community. • Inadequate standards of protection • Limited progress in prevention of exposure • Opaque supply chains and the transfer of hazardous work • Failures to realize the right to information “Mission to Germany” The Special Rapporteur considers this approach of using hazard-based criteria to be in line with the universality of human rights and the uncontrollable risks that certain hazardous substances pose to those rights. It is a commendable step by the European Union to protect the human rights of everyone, including agricultural workers and children. 47 A/HRC/39/48 During meetings with Bayer, the business enterprise informed the Special Rapporteur that they had a human rights policy in compliance with the FAO International Code of Conduct on the Distribution and Use of Pesticides, and a stewardship policy that they say reflects the whole life cycle of a product. For each life cycle step, Bayer says it works on best management practices with the objective of human safety, worker/operator safety, residues in food, consumer safety and environmental aspects. It also claims to work as an industry on training materials to ensure the safe use of pesticides. The Special Rapporteur was pleased to learn of Bayer’s phase-out policy to remove all highly hazardous pesticides considered to be carcinogenic from their portfolio by 2012, and of its process of “portfolio screening” (covering insecticides and fungicides in 2011 and herbicides in 2015). However, he was concerned to learn that highly hazardous pesticides remain in the Bayer portfolio with no target date for phase-out.