Japan Chemical Industry Association Publishes Chemical Label Preparation Guidance under Revised ISHL

One of the major changes brought about by Japan’s revised Industrial Safety and Health Law is that the number of chemicals subject to mandatory labeling has increased from 107 to 640. The current labeling standard requires listing of all hazardous ingredients (Article 6.2.6, JIS Z 7253:2012). The expansion in regulatory scope only serves to worsen existing problems associated with excessive information requirements for labeling of chemical labels and the difficulty in differentiating between essential information and less important information . Therefore, the new labeling rules based on the 2014 revision of ISHL set for implementation in 2016 will not require the disclosure of all the hazardous ingredients on chemical labels.