In May a European Union parliament committee approved a proposal to ban the sale of any new cosmetics tested on animals, regardless of where the testing took place.
The proposed law would ban all European Union animal tests into cosmetics by 2005 as well as ban the import of any new cosmetics tested on animals, even if the tests were conducted outside of the European Union.
Current products that have already been tested on animals would be grandfathered in by the law and remain available for sale or import.
The proposed law was approved by an EU parliament committee on a 42-0 vote and now moves on to the full EU parliament this month. The proposed ban on imports is a way to get around the obvious problem that by banning animal tests of cosmetics in the EU, companies will simply conduct such research elsewhere.
Regardless of whether or not it is finally approved, the law almost certainly violates World Trade Organization rules which forbid such discriminatory measures against products.
The EU executive, which supports a proposal to ban testing but not to ban sales of products tested in animals, noted that, “As the test method does not have any physical effect on the product, discrimination on this basis could be considered to be contrary to WTO rules.”
Source:
Euro MPs vote to ban cosmetics tested on animals. Robin Pomeroy, Reuters, May 24, 2002.