Regulations and Standards

Even in areas with little to no animal rights activities, it is important to be aware of the motivations and history behind the behaviour of activists.

Back in 2004, Nature reported that “China is poised to become a global centre for biomedical research in primates”¹. The reasons given were: low costs, fewer regulations, and no animal rights groups to battle.

Expectations for unlimited opportunities have dimmed somewhat with time. Ask anyone who watched China’s meteoric rise to economic and political power over the past decade if low costs are high on the list of reasons to do business in China today. Ask anyone who is trying to do business in China if they are operating in a less restrictive environment. But assessing the level of animal rights activities in the East is difficult because too few people have a firm grasp of the complex, sophisticated, long-term, well-funded, and global animal rights strategies at work to eliminate the use of animals in research around the world.

STARTING WITH ENDING RESEARCH ON GREAT APES
Sooner rather than later, US scientists will face a ban on medical research with nonhuman primates. For those who doubt this dire prediction, it is not too late to connect the dots.

A relevant starting point is the Great Ape Project ², brainchild of bioethicist Peter Singer, considered by many to be the father of the modern animal rights movement, and Italian philosopher, Paola Cavalieri. Launched in 1993, this international initiative aims to achieve legal personhood for chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans. The project has sent a Declaration of Rights to the United Nations that would confer legal rights to nonhuman primates including the right to life, the protection of individual liberty, and the prohibition of torture on these animals considered our cognitive and closest genetic cousins.

The United Kingdom is touted as the first to ban great ape research. It is difficult to nail down an actual date because it appears that in the beginning, there was no actual ban. The use of great apes was officially banned on November 6, 1997, though none had been used since the passing of the 1986 Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act³. The Home Office Science and Research Group, responsible for the efficient and effective operation of the Act, has reaffirmed their intention never to allow the use of great apes on their website FAQs⁴.

This brief history reflects the typical activist strategy of going for the low hanging fruit first and promoting legislation that has no apparent relevance to local human stakeholders. Such was the case in New Zealand where great apes were not even used in research. In 1999, activists cheered New Zealand’s ban of research, testing, and education involving nonhuman hominids unless it was in the best interest of the animal itself.

Similarly, in June 2008, the environmental committee in the Spanish parliament passed a resolution granting rights to great apes, effectively banning research on them. Pedro Poza, the Spanish director of the Great Ape Project, gave instructive insight into the global strategy of animal rights activists when he observed, “We have no knowledge of great apes being used in experiments in Spain, but there is currently no law preventing that from happening”⁵.

The Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, Austria, and Japan also have various restrictions on the use of this popular group of nonhuman primates.

Following the Fifth World Congress on Alternatives and Animal Use in the Life Sciences in 2005, over 86 animal “campaign” groups across Europe led by Animal Defenders International signed the so-called Berlin Declaration, a united call for a complete ban on primate research and testing⁶.