Towards an Animal Welfare policy for 21st Century Science: An Opportunity for Asia

Abstract

Animal based scientific research has increasingly been outsourced by big western pharmaceutical companies to Asia on the basis of government policies and indigenous programs in Asia which emphasise economic development priorities. As a result of this the quality of laboratory animal care in Asian contexts of science has also come under increasing scrutiny from the major stakeholders in the international bio-medical research community. Of particular concern to stakeholders with a specific interest in sustainable laboratory animal welfare is the absence of effective legislation and a culture that recog- nizes the value of animals or the importance of their welfare. This paper will explore the idea that the growing challenge of coming up with an appropriate animal welfare policy in Asian contexts of science also represents an opportunity to consider the requirements of a globally applicable animal welfare policy for the 21st century. It will do so in terms of also reviewing how concepts of dominion and stewardship have given way to that of duty of care in modern Western contexts. On this basis it will propose that the concept of duty of care linked together with Singer’s contemporary adaptation of utilitarian philosophy might form the basis of a more sustainable 21st century animal welfare policy that could put Asia’s new bio-medical research players in the vanguard of animal welfare policy.