The right to information about hazardous substances

In his annual report to the Human Rights Council, Baskut Tuncak, the UN Special Rapporteur on hazardous substance and waste called on governments and businesses to do more to provide public information about the adverse effects of hazardous substances.  “Securing adequate information about hazardous substances remains an incessant global problem,” Mr. Tuncak stated. “Today, information is neither available nor accessible about the safety of tens of thousands of chemicals on the market, the potential sources of exposure to substances with known and unknown hazards, the amount of human exposure to hazardous substances, and the impacts of exposure to a large number of hazardous substances starting from conception.”  His full report is available here.