Posted May 23, 2014
On
Thursday, the World Trade Organization (WTO) appeals panel upheld the European
Union’s ban on seal furs, meat, blubber, and other products, which could prompt
other animal welfare measures affecting the global trading systems, according
to a Politico article in by Adam Behsudi available here. The Wall Street
Journal also published an article available here, and the Canadian
Press published an article available here.
The
annual clubbing and shooting of hundreds and thousands of seals has prompted
the justification of the 4 year-old ban by the European Union. The decision of
the WTO supporting the EU law could establish guidelines for a country
defending a trade measure by utilizing public morality.
Canada
and Norway criticized the bill, arguing that upholding the public morals
justification would set a dangerous precedent and open a “floodgate” of similar
animal welfare issues.
“When
you do that, then you’re in danger of all the other industries being banned in
the same way,” Terry Audla, President of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, an
association representing more than 50,000 Inuits, told The Canadian Press. “I mean, who’s to say what’s more
cruel? Industrialized agriculture? The poultry, pork and beef industry?”
However,
a justification of the measures with a “very strong body of evidence that the
measure improves public morals,” Aldworth said, will be required by those
seeking to place bans on animal products or institute other trade restrictions.
Rob
Howse, a WTO legal expert and law professor at New York University, called “the
floodgate theory a red herring.” The initial seal case decision was thorough
and primarily applied to the conditions of the seal hunt, he said.
Seal
hunts in the unpredictable environment of arctic ice flows “pose various risks
to the welfare of seals, including the risks of ineffective stunning, delays in
the killing process, struck and lost seals, and the hooking of unconscious
seals,” says the WTO’s findings.
The
decision on the seal ban was the first time the WTO upheld an animal welfare
law on moral grounds, although member countries have invoked the exception to
defend their trade practices.
“The
real question is if the measure is necessary to protect public morals,” Howse
said. “The WTO would cease legitimacy very fast if it told countries what they
could or could not regulate under public morals.”
For more information on animal
welfare, please visit the National Agricultural Law Center’s website here.
