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Sykes, Katie --- "WTO law, the environment and animal welfare" [2019] ELECD 1098; in Scholtz, Werner (ed), "Animal Welfare and International Environmental Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019) 269

Book Title: Animal Welfare and International Environmental Law

Editor(s): Scholtz, Werner

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Section: Chapter 8

Section Title: WTO law, the environment and animal welfare

Author(s): Sykes, Katie

Number of pages: 36

Abstract/Description:

The law of the World Trade Organization (WTO) may seem an unlikely place to look for progress towards integrating animal welfare with environmentalism and wildlife conservation. WTO law is often seen as an impediment to progress both of these issues, and the WTO, as an institution of international economic law, is not and should not be leading the way on new developments in this direction. However, significantly, the first decision of an international tribunal to overtly engage with animal welfare as a legitimate policy objective and as a serious concern for the global community – EC–Seal Products – comes from the WTO dispute settlement system. This chapter argues that WTO law can potentially contribute, even if indirectly and expressively more than directly or concretely, to a progressive development of wildlife protection law that recognizes the moral significance of animals as individuals. I argue that the groundwork for such a contribution is laid, in part, in some of the landmark WTO cases on the balance between trade and environmental regulation. An aspect of these leading cases that is often underemphasized is that they are also about the protection of animals, and links can be found here between species conservation and a fuller conception of animal protection. WTO jurisprudence is centrally concerned with the appropriate balance between trade liberalization and non-trade public policy objectives, and it is now clear that animal welfare, as well as species conservation, has weight in that balancing exercise.