Globalization and the Animal Turn: How International Trade Law Contributes to Global Norms of Animal Protection

Abstract

Many animal and environmental activists think of international trade law as a block to the achievement of their goals and perceive the World Trade Organization (WTO) as a threat to animals. Yet, the first legal decision of an international tribunal to devote careful, sustained attention to animal welfare issues comes from the WTO, in the EC -Seal Products decision. This article argues that international trade law is currently an important, although under-acknowledged, locus for the development of global norms concerning the protection of animals, and that animal conservation and animal welfare can be seen as aspects of a single overarching principle of animal protection. International trade law contributes to animal protection in two ways. Firstly, WTO jurisprudence has recognized animal protection as a legitimate basis for invoking exceptions to trade rules (as in EC -Seal Products). Secondly, international trade negotiations enhance cooperation on the implementation and enforcement of existing conservation obligations (as in the new Trans-Pacific Partnership's Environment Chapter).

Anthropocentrism: More than Just a Misunderstood Problem

“…The ecosystem services approach however remains anthropocentric, as it focuses on only benefits for people (Norton 1984;Washington 2015). Unga (1982) also states that every form of life warrants respect ''regardless of its worth to man'', and that according such respect requires us to be ''guided by a moral code of action '' (in Sykes 2016). This moral code of action is not likely to be instructed by the same thinking that produced anthropocentrism as a dominant ideology in the first place.…”

“…In the emerging fields of animal law (Borràs 2016;Sykes 2016) or environmental law (Burdon 2011) that focuses on Earth jurisprudence (Higgins 2010) the attribution still needs to be established. Partially, this is because acting on behalf of nonhumans calls into question the assumption that we cannot presume to 'know' what animals want.…”

Animals and the Impact of Trade Law and Policy: A Global Animal Law Question

“…However, emerging research on global animal law is relatively blind to this shortcoming because of the disproportionately large contribution of trade law to the 'tentative and embryonic' global governance for animals. 77…”

The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology

“…Yet, as generations of cultural change show, ideology is not fixed. Respect for nonhuman rights has been recently enshrined in some governments' legal systems (Sykes 2016). The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has served to inspire initiatives such as the Universal Declaration of Rights of Mother Earth (http://therightsofnature.org/), initiated by the Bolivian government, the Wildlands Project Land Conservation (Noss 1992), the rights of rivers in New Zealand, Australia and India (O'Donnell and Talbot-Jones 2018), or Lake Erie in the US.…”