International Chemicals Policy, Health and Human Rights

Over the last 150 years, the chemical industry has played a key role in the global economy. The industry’s contributions to economic growth, employment, and improvements in life expectancy, health, and living conditions in Western-style societies are widely recognized. Chemicals are a basic building block for nearly all industrial and productive activity, and they appear in millions of chemically formulated products, consumer products, and durable goods. Ninety percent of the approximately 100,000 chemicals produced by the chemical industry and used commercially are made using oil, and in the space of just over 50 years, those chemicals have come to constitute the material basis of society.