Tierversuchsrecht als Ausgleichordnung

Zusatztext

Animal experimentation is among the most socially contested research methods and has a long, conflict-laden history that continues to shape contemporary law. Its regulation can only be fully understood in conjunction with biological foundations, particularly the concept of animal models, their epistemic contributions, and their evolutionarily determined limits. At the same time, animal welfare law exists alongside a heterogeneous field of animal ethics, which often leads to conceptual confusion. While the law on animal experimentation ostensibly refers to ethical justifiability, it ultimately entails administrative balancing based on law-inherent functional logics. The rationality of such decisions depends significantly on knowledge from animal physiology and veterinary medicine, assessed through demanding categories such as sentience and consciousness. The study develops these interdisciplinary foundations and traces the legal model of conflict resolution. It demonstrates the different functions of animal experimentation in law: within regulatory frameworks, such as chemicals and pharmaceutical law, experiments serve to establish properties of substances in specific administrative procedures. By contrast, biomedical research is primarily oriented toward generating scientific knowledge. Particular emphasis is placed on the epistemic value of animal models in basic research, which, although quantitatively highly significant, often remains overshadowed in public debates by expectations of practical application.

Autorenportrait

is Professor for Public Law at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, full member of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts and since August 2020 member of the Permanent Senate Commission on Animal Experimentation of the German Research Foundation (DFG).

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