Ordinance
on the Handling of Organisms in the Environment
(Release Ordinance, RO)

1 Any per­son who in­tends to mar­ket or­gan­isms for use in the en­vir­on­ment must first:

a.

as­sess the pos­sible haz­ards and harm caused by the or­gan­isms, their meta­bol­ic products and wastes to hu­man be­ings, an­im­als or the en­vir­on­ment as well as to bio­lo­gic­al di­versity or the sus­tain­able use there­of; and

b.

ar­rive at a jus­ti­fi­able con­clu­sion that no such haz­ards and harm are to be ex­pec­ted.

2 The as­sess­ment re­ferred to in para­graph 1 let­ter a must in par­tic­u­lar con­sider:

a.

the or­gan­isms’ po­ten­tial for sur­viv­al, dis­sem­in­a­tion and rep­lic­a­tion in the en­vir­on­ment;

b.

pos­sible in­ter­ac­tions with oth­er or­gan­isms and com­munit­ies as well as im­pacts on hab­it­ats.