SAICM texts and resolutions of the International Conference on Chemicals Management
The Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM) is a policy framework for international action on chemical hazards. It supports achievement of a central goal agreed at the 2002 Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development: to ensure that by 2020 chemicals are produced and used in ways that minimize significant adverse impacts on the environment and human health. The first session of the International Conference on Chemicals Management (ICCM) in February 2006 adopted the Dubai Declaration on International Chemicals Management and the Overarching Policy Strategy.
The Conference also recommended the use and further development of the Global Plan of Action as a working tool and guidance document. The present publication sets out these three texts together with the resolutions and annexes of the Conference at its first, second and third sessions.
The objectives of the Strategic Approach with regard to risk reduction include:
- To minimize risks to human health, including that of workers, and to the environment throughout the life cycle of chemicals.
- To ensure that humans and ecosystems and their constituent parts that are especially vulnerable or especially subject to exposure to chemicals that may pose a risk are taken into account and protected in making decisions on chemicals.
- To implement transparent, comprehensive, efficient and effective risk management strategies based on appropriate scientific understanding, including of health and environmental effects, and appropriate social and economic analysis aimed at pollution prevention, risk reduction and risk elimination, including detailed safety information on chemicals, to prevent unsafe and unnecessary exposures to chemicals.