UNESCO defines it as the right for people to "participate in an informed way in decisions that affect them, while also holding governments and others accountable".
Right to know regarding environmental hazard information is protected by Australian law, which is described at Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities.
The European Commission provides central access to most of the information about individual regulatory agencies and laws.
[16] The US Department of Defense is self-regulating, and as such, is immune to state and federal law pertaining to Occupational Safety and Health Administration OSHA and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations on foreign and domestic soil.
[citation needed] The Environmental Protection Agency is responsible for maintaining lists of specific hazardous materials.
[18] State and local agencies maintain epidemiology information required by physicians to evaluate environmental illness.
[20] Some specific chemicals, such as cyaniate, cyanide, cyano, and nitrile compounds, satisfy the specific hazard definition that is identified in public law regardless of whether or not the item is identified on the list of restricted use pesticides maintained by the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
For example, cyanide exposure symptoms include weakness, headache, nausea, confusion, dizziness, seizures, cardiac arrest, and unconsciousness.
DOT is responsible for enforcement actions and public notification regarding hazardous chemical releases and exposures, including incidents involving federal workers.
[29] The United States Department of Defense manages environmental safety independent of OSHA and EPA.
Spills, mishaps, illnesses, and injuries are not normally handled in accordance with local, state, and federal law.
A Flag Officer is subject to Court-martial action if laws or government policies are violated under their command when the activity is outside the scope of mission orders and rules of engagement.
[30] Because military law enforcement is performed with no independent civilian oversight, there is an inherent conflict of interest.
[31] Criminal violations, injuries, and potential enforcement actions begin by exchanging information in the following venues when civilian government employees and flag officers are unable to deal with the situation in an ethical manner.
The following unclassified documents provide further information for programs managed by the United States Secretary of Defense.
Product label requirements are established by the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act under the authority of the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
It also states that workers must be trained at the time of initial assignment and whenever a new hazard is introduced into their work area.
There are other sources of information about chemicals used in industry as a result of state and federal laws regarding the Community Right to Know Act.
[72] Under the Oregon Community Right to Know Act (ORS 453.307-372) and the federal Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act (SARA) Title III, the Office of the State Fire Marshal collects information on hazardous substances and makes it available to emergency responders and to the general public.
It is available on request from the Fire Marshal's Office and is normally free of charge unless unusually large quantities of data are involved.
[citation needed] In addition to seeing the results, employees and their representatives also have the right to observe the actual measurement of hazardous chemical or noise exposure.
[citation needed] Exposure records that are part of an OR-OSHA inspection file are also accessible to employees and union representatives.
[citation needed] The push towards greater availability of information came from events that killed many and infected others with toxins, such as the Bhopal disaster in India in December 1984.
During the Bhopal disaster, a cloud of methyl isocyanate escaped an insecticide plant due to neglect, and as a result, 2,000 people were killed and many more were injured.
[74] Shortly after, the Emergency Planning and Right to Know Act of 1986, originally introduced by California Democrat Henry Waxman, was passed.
The act issued a requirement for industrial facilities across the U.S. to disclose information on their annual releases of toxic chemicals.
This data collected is made available by the Environmental Protection Agency in the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) which is open to public knowledge.
This was noticed as a step in the right direction however, only pounds of individual pollutants were required to be released as a result of this act.
[citation needed] In years to come, the public achieved greater ways of accessing the information that corporations with excess pollutants withheld.
This data is determined by the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) and calculated with factors such as winds carrying the pollution, height of smokestacks, and how much it impacts nearby communities.