Towards regulatory action on nanomaterials

Existing national Swiss chemicals regulations allow for the implicit regulation of nanomaterials. While work is ongoing in generating the necessary scientific and technical data, we are faced with a need to implement risk governance in the face of both scientific and regulatory uncertainty. One approach to risk governance under these conditions involves the use of the precautionary approach. This approach is well anchored in the Swiss legislation in both the Chemicals Act (ChemA) and the Environmental Protection Act (EPA) both of which assign self-supervisory obligations to either manufacturer or importer of chemical substances, products or applications. Within this national framework, the Swiss federal administration published in 2008 in accord with its Action Plan on Synthetic Nanomaterials a first measure, the Precautionary Matrix for Synthetic Nanomaterials, a voluntary guideline towards the estimation of potential risk in nanomaterials.

In this workshop the WTO the debate and discussion centered around the Precautionary Matrix it its initial version of December 2008 as a voluntary unilateral national measure. As such, following the WTI’s legal analysis, it can be considered as a national standard and as such encounters few difficulties within the WTO rules and disciplines.  Its implementation as either a standard or a technical regulation in the future if develop following the TBT Code of Good Practice for the Preparation, Adoption and Application of Standards should provide for its future compatibility.