Ethics, Regulation, Law Archive

Lab mouse | Photo credit: fotografixx, iStock

Nov 10, 2022 Slowly but Steadily, Animals are being Replaced in Safety Testing

Posted at 18:21h In Articles, Ethics, Regulation, Law, Laboratory Animals, Public Awareness/Attitudes, WellBeing News - By Andrew Rowan, DPhil

Periodically, WellBeing News (WBN) carries a story on using animals to test the safety of chemicals (see May 2021 and December 2021). Advocacy campaigns to switch from animal tests to non-animal alternatives started over a hundred years ago. Public policy initiatives and technological advances leading...

Hot summer in the city | Photo credit: Tomwang112, iStock

Nov 10, 2022 COP27 – Can We Move Forward?

Posted at 16:44h In Environment Well-being, Ethics, Regulation, Law, Letter from the President, Sustainability/Biodiversity, WellBeing News - By Andrew Rowan, DPhil and Kathleen Rowan CEO, WellBeing International

Under the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27) opened in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on November 6 and runs through the 18th. World leaders, climate campaigners, and climate stakeholders are gathered amid challenging world economic dynamics,...

Biodiversity | Video credit: Black Box Guild

Aug 24, 2022 United Nations – Convention on Biological Diversity and COP15

Posted at 11:30h In Animals, Articles, Ethics, Regulation, Law, Humane and Environmental Education, Sustainability/Biodiversity, Well-being, WellBeing News - By Adeline Lerambert

With wildlife and biodiversity in an unprecedented crisis, pressure weighs heavily on the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), a multilateral environmental treaty that went into effect in 1993.In December 2022, the CBD's fifteenth Conference of Parties (COP15) will convene in Montreal to adopt an...

Octopus vulgaris | Photo credit: TheSp4N1SH

May 02, 2022 UK Passes Its Own Animal Sentience Act After Leaving the EU

Posted at 16:34h In Animal Sentience, Animal Well-being, Animals, Articles, Ethics, Regulation, Law, Letter from the President, Public Awareness/Attitudes, WellBeing News - By Andrew Rowan, DPhil

When the UK (United Kingdom) voted to leave the European Union (EU), one of the consequences would be the loss of legislation on various issues covered in existing EU laws. The UK government had to pass new laws covering the many items in EU legislation...

Jan 17, 2022 Animal Sentience: Moving Forward

Posted at 09:38h In Animal Sentience, Animal Well-being, Animals, Articles, Ethics, Regulation, Law, Public Awareness/Attitudes, Tales of WellBeing - By Andrew Rowan

In October last year, WellBeing International organized two webinars on animal sentience – specifically on the question of invertebrate sentience – as part of a project funded by the Centre for Effective Altruism. We were surprised by the level of interest in the topic. In...

Aug 17, 2021 Animal Sentience, Public Awareness, and Public Policy

Posted at 11:52h In Animal Sentience, Animal Well-being, Animals, Articles, Ethics, Regulation, Law, Letter from the President, Public Awareness/Attitudes, WellBeing News - By Andrew Rowan, DPhil

Over the past fifty years, public concern for animals (and “animal sentience”) has prompted significant changes in public policy in many countries worldwide. It is not yet clear what has driven this concern. There had been a similar increase in public concern for animals in...

Aug 17, 2021 Animal Welfare at the United Nations

Posted at 11:50h In Animal Well-being, Animals, Articles, Ethics, Regulation, Law, Sustainability/Biodiversity, WellBeing News - By Andrew Rowan

In 2018, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP – headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya) signed a two-year agreement with a Kenyan animal protection group, the Africa Network for Animal Welfare (ANAW – founded in 2006), that included a stipulation that ANAW should organize animal welfare conferences...

May 10, 2021 The Wolf Pendulum in the United States

Posted at 10:30h In Animal Well-being, Articles, Ethics, Regulation, Law, WellBeing News, Wild Animals - By Andrew Rowan, DPhil

The Idaho legislature has just sent a bill to Governor Brad Little’s desk that would authorize the killing of up to 90% of Idaho’s estimated 1,500 wolves. This bill represents a swing of the wolf pendulum back to the early part of the 20th century...

Pharmacology. Development and production of medicines. The flasks with colored substances and packaging of tablets. Pharmaceutical company. New drugs for the treatment of diseases.

Jan 29, 2021 Drug Company Research and Animal Use

Posted at 11:27h In Articles, Ethics, Regulation, Law, Laboratory Animals, Letter from the President, WellBeing News - By Andrew Rowan, DPhil

Over the years, the use of laboratory animals by drug companies and other commercial laboratories has elicited more than its share of criticism. In the late 1970s, animal advocates turned their attention to the testing of cosmetics and personal care products on animals, with particular...

Feb 27, 2020 In Search of Explanations and the Truth

Posted at 07:24h In Articles, Ethics, Regulation, Law, WellBeing News - By Andrew Rowan, DPhil

In the search to explain the world around us, there have been occasions where a particular set of observations produces a narrative that appears to provide an elegant explanation of what is happening, even though it might not be entirely accurate. One such story is...