EU law bans the sale of cosmetics whose ingredients have been tested on animals in the EU or elsewhere, according to a European Court of Justice ruling on 21 September (Case C-592/14).
The Court was responding to a request for a preliminary ruling from the High Court of Justice in England and Wales, to which a case was sent by the European Federation for Cosmetic Ingredients (EFfCI). The EFfCI represents the manufacturers of cosmetic ingredients within the EU. It wanted to know whether three of its members that carried out animal experiments outside the EU with a view to selling their products in China and Japan could then sell those products on the British market.
In the ruling, the Court points out that cosmetics legislation (EU Regulation 1223/2009) aims to establish conditions for accessing the EU market for cosmetics and to ensure a high level of protection of human health while ensuring the welfare of animals through a ban on animal testing. It says that EU law does not make any distinction according to where the testing is carried out. The Court therefore concludes that the sale of cosmetics in the EU of which some ingredients have been tested on animals outside the EU in order to allow the sale of these products in non-EU countries can be banned if the information resulting from the testing is used to demonstrate the safety of the products in question for the purpose of their sale in the EU. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)