Federal Act
on Non-Human Gene Technology
(Gene Technology Act, GTA)

¹ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil ap­points a Fed­er­al Eth­ics Com­mit­tee on Non-hu­man Bi­o­tech­no­logy. It com­prises eth­i­cists from out­side the gov­ern­ment and oth­er per­sons from a range of sub­ject areas who have sci­entif­ic or prac­tic­al know­ledge of eth­ics. Dif­fer­ent eth­ic­al ap­proaches must be rep­res­en­ted in the Com­mit­tee.

² The Com­mit­tee pur­sues and eval­u­ates from an eth­ic­al point of view the de­vel­op­ments and ap­plic­a­tions of bi­o­tech­no­logy and is­sues state­ments on as­so­ci­ated sci­entif­ic and so­cial is­sues from an eth­ic­al point of view.

³ It ad­vises:

a.

the Fed­er­al Coun­cil on en­act­ing reg­u­la­tions;

b.

fed­er­al and can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies on en­force­ment. In par­tic­u­lar, it is­sues state­ments on au­thor­isa­tion ap­plic­a­tions or planned re­search of fun­da­ment­al or ex­em­plary sig­ni­fic­ance; for this pur­pose it may view doc­u­ments, re­quest in­form­a­tion and con­sult fur­ther ex­perts.

⁴It col­lab­or­ates with oth­er fed­er­al and can­ton­al com­mit­tees con­cerned with is­sues of bi­o­tech­no­logy.

⁵ It en­gages in pub­lic dia­logue on eth­ic­al is­sues of bi­o­tech­no­logy, and makes peri­od­ic re­ports to the Fed­er­al Coun­cil about its activ­it­ies.