Animal Welfare Act
(AniWA)

¹ Any per­son who pro­duces, breeds, keeps, man­ages or trades in ge­net­ic­ally mod­i­fied an­im­als re­quires can­ton­al au­thor­isa­tion. Any per­son who pro­duces, breeds, keeps or trades in such an­im­als for the pur­pose of re­search, ther­apy or dia­gnostics re­quires can­ton­al au­thor­isa­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 19 para­graph 1. In oth­er cases, the au­thor­isa­tion pro­ced­ure is based on the pro­vi­sions gov­ern­ing an­im­al ex­per­i­ments and on the Gene Tech­no­logy Act of 21 March 2003¹⁶.

² Hav­ing con­sul­ted the in­ter­ested parties, the Fed­er­al Eth­ics Com­mit­tee on Non-Hu­man Bi­o­tech­no­logy, the Swiss Ex­pert Com­mit­tee for Biosafety and the Swiss Com­mit­tee on An­im­al Ex­per­i­ments, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall define the cri­ter­ia for weigh­ing the im­plic­a­tions of pro­du­cing, breed­ing, hous­ing and us­ing ge­net­ic­ally mod­i­fied an­im­als and trad­ing in such an­im­als.

³ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil reg­u­lates the re­quire­ments bind­ing on the in­sti­tutes in which activ­it­ies as defined in the second sen­tence of para­graph 1 are car­ried out, and in par­tic­u­lar the re­quire­ments with re­gard to in­fra­struc­ture, per­son­nel, su­per­vi­sion and doc­u­ment­a­tion.

⁴ It may al­low ex­emp­tions from the au­thor­isa­tion re­quire­ment or sim­pli­fic­a­tions in the au­thor­isa­tion pro­ced­ure, par­tic­u­larly if it is cer­tain that the an­im­als will not ex­per­i­ence pain, suf­fer­ing or harm, or de­vel­op be­ha­vi­our­al dis­orders as a res­ult of the pro­duc­tion and breed­ing meth­ods and that their dig­nity will oth­er­wise be taken in­to ac­count.