Rattled in Europe by the REACH regulation and carbon dioxide emission curbs, international chemical companies are at the Rio Earth Summit determined to push for a global approach to environmental policy—but with a light regulatory touch. … The reasoning is simple and well-known. Rather than complying with a myriad of environmental laws in different countries, companies prefer dealing with a single set of globally-harmonized rules. … In Europe, the REACH regulation, adopted in 2006, has started a mammoth process of registering about 100,000 substances that are currently used in a wide range of consumer products, with the aim of gradually...