In Chapter 19 of Agenda 21 regarding the worldwide environmentally sound management of toxic (dangerous) chemicals the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in June 1992 in Rio de Janeiro agreed to adopt - amongst others -the global harmonization of classification and labelling of chemicals by the year 2000. Under the name of,,global harmonization" this programme has made considerable progress, but it is not generally known in detail - except by those directly involved - what has happened, and what will still happen, what harmonization in this context means, and what the consequences will be when this ambitious goal is finally reached. The submitted contribution attempts as far as possible to overcome this information deficit.