A/HRC/39/48 B. Rights to information, participation and association 24. Everyone, including workers, has the inalienable rights to freedom of expression, assembly and association, including the freedom to join and form trade unions, and the right to information.29 25. The right to information is the foundation for the realization of all workers’ rights regarding toxic exposures. As mentioned above, the right to information is indivisible from the worker’s right to not be exposed to toxic substances without their prior informed consent. Workers have the right to know, inter alia, the implications of exposure, the action being taken to prevent exposure and their rights in relation to such exposures. 26. Public frameworks for collecting, measuring, monitoring, reporting and verifying information on hazards and exposure levels are necessary for evaluating and analysing health implications and accountability. Maintaining disaggregated, accurate and complete information is necessary to understand specific events and for accurate knowledge of the impact of particular actions on various workers as well as on other exposed groups including children, women of reproductive age, migrant workers and their families, older persons and persons with disabilities. 27. ILO recognizes several aspects of the worker’s (and their representative’s) right to know in its conventions, as well as of the duties of States and the responsibilities of employers’ businesses, including chemical suppliers. 30 For example, concerned workers and their representatives have the right to “information on the identity of chemicals used at work, the hazardous properties of such chemicals, precautionary measures, education and training”. 31 However, while the Chemicals Convention calls for the classification of chemicals according to their potential health hazard (art. 6), it requires suppliers merely to assess the properties of these substances “on the basis of a search of available information” (art. 9 (3)), i.e., the Convention does not require them to conduct tests to generate missing information relevant for such classification. 28. All health and safety information held by public bodies and business enterprises should be subject to disclosure, unless it falls within a narrow set of public-interest limitations such as the protection of privacy or public health (see A/HRC/30/40, paras. 38 and 101 (b)). It is never legitimate for States or businesses to refuse to disclose health and safety information on the grounds that it is confidential, particularly on the grounds that it would adversely affect profits or competitiveness (ibid., para. 42). To this end, international agreements on toxic chemicals have repeatedly stipulated that health and safety information about toxic substances shall not be regarded as confidential. 32 29. Workers defending their right to safe and healthy work, among other rights, find strength in numbers. Strong protections for the right to organize, including the formation of unions, the right to freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining, have proven effective in strengthening protections for workers from exposure to toxic substances as well as other risks. For example, the strength of unions led to the phasing out of tobacco smoking from indoor spaces. ILO conventions provide for these rights, which it considers to be fundamental rights at work. 29 30 31 32 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, art. 24; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, arts. 19, 22 and 25; International Convention on the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, art. 26. Chemicals Convention, art. 18; Prevention of Major Industrial Accidents Convention, 1993 (No. 174), art. 20; Safety and Health in Mines Convention, 1995 (No. 176), art. 13 (1) (c); and Safety and Health in Agriculture Convention, 2001 (No. 184), art. 8 (1) (a). Chemicals Convention, art. 18 (3). Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, art. 9; Minamata Convention on Mercury, art. 17. See also Dubai Declaration on International Chemicals Management. 7