Advice on the evaluation of the Animals Act
Creators: name: Bureau Risicobeoordeling & Research, Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2020
Subjects: subject: Animal welfare
subject: Animal health
subject: Public health
subject: Animals Act
subject: https://english.nvwa.nl/documents/animal/welfare/buro/documents/advice-from-buro-on-the-evaluation-of-the-animals-act
subject: http://id.agrisemantics.org/gacs/C15
subject: http://id.agrisemantics.org/gacs/C1370
subject: http://id.agrisemantics.org/gacs/C933

description: The Dutch Animals Act (Wet dieren) is one of a number of policy instruments used to safeguard animal welfare and animal and public health in the Netherlands. Its aim is to achieve a simple, transparent and coherent system of rules that dictate how animals are to be treated by humans and manage the risks that animals or animal products could create for humans and other animals. The Animals Act was drafted with the following ambitions in mind: • To bring together coherent legislation to make it clear to various target groups (animal keepers, veterinarians and traders, etc.) which rules apply to the activities to be carried out by them; • To protect animals by recognising their intrinsic value and, by doing this, sending out a strong signal that the function animals have for humans can be subordinated to or weighed up against their intrinsic value. There was also a desire to include a provision on the general duty of care, sending out a signal that the social responsibility humans have towards animals goes beyond keeping them in the manner required; • To protect humans and the environment by drafting rules to ensure that animals and animal products are safe for humans and also limit and avoid the unwanted emissions of substances into the environment; • To balance different interests when drafting regulations. The interests to be balanced are animal health and animal welfare, the individuality and integrity of animals, the protection of human health and safety, the protection of the environment in relation to the use of animal feed and veterinary medicinal products and the honesty of trade in animals and animal products. The Animals Act came into effect in a number of phases from 1 January 2013 up to and including 1 July 2014. Article 10.11. of this Act stipulates that the Act is to be evaluated after five years. In 2019, the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality (Ministry of LNV) launched a project to evaluate the Animals Act and the underlying regulations. The underlying decrees and ministerial regulations include the Animal Keepers Decree (Besluit houders van dieren) , the Animal Keepers Regulation (Regeling houders van dieren) and the Veterinarians Decree (Besluit diergeneeskundigen). The object of the evaluation by the Ministry of LNV is to ascertain whether these ambitions have been achieved and also whether the instruments that the Act provides for are effective if rules are broken. In recent years, the Office for Risk Assessment &amp; Research (BuRO) of the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) has issued a number of recommendations and risk assessments on the subject of animal welfare, among other things. The BuRO also monitors (international) scientific developments in the field of animal welfare. In the current evaluation, the BuRO will establish a link between the animal welfare risks identified in the risk assessments and recommendations on the one hand and the Animals Act on the other hand. By doing this, the BuRO aims to establish whether animal welfare risks can be managed adequately under the current Animals Act and also which modifications it deems necessary.
description: NL; pdf; NVWAEFSAFocalPoint@nvwa.nl