Helsinki Animal Law Seminar | May 28

Jessica Tselepy | I am More than Cargo: An examination of the legality of measures which restrict the trade of farmed non-human animals within the WTO regime

International trade law has often been seen as an unsuitable place for contributing to the de-commodification of non-human animals. Accordingly, contemplation of non-human animals in the GATT regime and proceeding WTO regime has been absent, ancillary, or antagonistic to these lives’ interests. In the wake of one of the few WTO Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) cases which considered a status for non-human animals as something more than ‘mere property’ (‘EC – Seal Products’),

a swathe of scholarly attention has been devoted to the question of how non-human animal protection fits within the WTO regime. While some have decried the perceived threat of States abusing trading rules, others have framed the case as an almost revolutionary step towards an improved status quo for non-human animals. I propose to present on my thesis work to date which demonstrates why neither of these ends of the spectrum responses are entirely accurate depictions of the DSB precedence to date and analyses the room that exists within the ‘mere property’ status quo for a conceptualisation of non-human animals as ‘more than property’. My presentation will focus on my doctrinal analyses of the three leading ‘non-human animals as potentially ‘more than property’ cases (US - Shrimp, US Tuna II (Mexico), and EC - Seal Products) applying a blended Critical Animal Studies and Global Animal Law Lens (CAS+GAL Lens) to extract (a) conceptualisations of non-human animals and their welfare and (b) the room for an expanded conceptualisation of non-human animals as ‘more than property’. I will additionally present my analyses of how this expanded conceptualisation interacts with the DSB’s Article XX reasoning as it relates to ‘public morals’, and then applies this analysis to a model non-human animal welfare measure to demonstrate how States may construct legitimately trade restrictive non-human animal protective measures.