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International institutions working on chemicals policy

United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) Chemicals Branch (UNEP Chemicals)

UNEP Chemicals, a non regulatory division of UNEP based in Geneva Switzerland, has several global and regional chemicals assessment and policy initiatives, including:

• The UNEP Mercury Programme works to "facilitate and conduct technical assistance and capacity building activities to support the efforts of countries to take action on mercury pollution."
• Regionally Based Assessment of Persistent Toxic Substances (PTS) "aims at making regional assessments of the damages and threats posed by Persistent Toxic Substances".
• The UNEP Pollution Release and Transfer Register site is a central location of various systems from organizations of national and regional governments for collection and distribution of information about releases and transfers of toxic chemicals from industrial facilities into the environment.

UNEP Chemicals also coordinates implementation of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants and the Rotterdam Convention on Prior Informed Consent (see above).

World Health Organisation (WHO)

The World Health Organisation (WHO) is involved in the health aspects of chemicals. See their Chemical safety page for more details.

The WHO also hosts a number of other chemical-related organisations:

• The Inter-organization Programme for the sound management of chemicals (IOMC) which is "the pre-eminent mechanism for initiating, facilitating and coordinating international action to achieve the WSSD 2020 goal for sound management of chemicals."
• The International Programme on Chemical Safety (IPCS), which "is a joint programme of three Cooperating Organizations - ILO, UNEP and WHO, implementing activities related to chemical safety. WHO is the Executing Agency of the IPCS, whose main roles are to establish the scientific basis for safe use of chemicals, and to strengthen national capabilities and capacities for chemical safety."
• The Intergovernmental Forum on Chemical Safety (IFCS), which is "A unique, over-arching mechanism to develop and promote strategies and partnerships among national governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations." Each country involved in IFCS should nominate a National Focal Point.

International Labour Organisation (ILO)

The International Labour Organisation focusses its work on worker health, see their Safe Work web site for more details.

United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR)

UNITAR runs a large number of capacity building programmes on chemicals management - see their Chemicals and Waste Management Programme web site for details.

OECD

The OECD has a number of programmes relating to chemicals policy, including work on alternative methods, chemical test guidelines and hazard assessment of selected substances.