We live in a world where some countries are leaders in animal welfare, and other countries lag behind. Global relationships provide some useful tactics that can help animal advocacy organisations do more for animals - here, we outline three.

If you advocate for animals in a lower-welfare jurisdiction, these tools can help your campaign succeed. If you advocate for animals in a higher-welfare jurisdiction (e.g. the EU or the UK), your work could benefit more animals than you expect. If you belong to an alliance or a coalition, connecting organisations in lower- and higher-welfare countries can bring new opportunities for change.

1. Setting and using precedents

When a country considers adopting a higher-welfare practice, arguments in favour of those practices have greater justification if those practices already exist somewhere in the world.

In Australia, debate on sow stalls was triggered in the mid-2000’s after the publication of a report by Voiceless. Notably, the EU had already committed to limiting sow stalls in 2001. The existing EU regulations showed that there was an alternative technology that industry could readily adopt. This encouraged the pig industry to adopt the concerns of animal advocacy organisations and commit to phasing out the use of sow stalls [1]. This shows how drawing on existing precedent in public and political debates can help animal advocacy organisations achieve change.

Precedents also mean that first-movers can have much higher impacts than they expect. If you’re advocating for a world-first policy in your country, then that policy could end up making it easier for advocates in other countries to advocate for the same policy in the future. In this way, you could be helping far more animals than you might think. improving the lives

2. Trade links, for lower-welfare countries that export to higher-welfare countries

If a country or a company produces meat or animal products for export globally, that country or company is likely to adopt the highest welfare practices among its major export partners. This means that countries or companies can adopt the welfare regulations of the EU, the UK, or other higher-welfare jurisdictions, even without officially needing to do so. This is the essence of the Brussels effect [2].

The Brussels effect can happen directly. For example, producers might deliberately adopt the EU’s animal welfare regulations to secure access to the EU’s market.

But this can also happen indirectly by providing leverage to animal advocacy groups. In New Zealand, two animal advocacy organisations conducted an independent investigation on the cruelty experienced by young calves in the dairy industry. One of these organisations placed advertisements about this cruelty in a newspaper in the UK. The UK has high animal welfare standards and is an important export market for New Zealand. So, the Ministry for Primary Industries - seeking to protect New Zealand’s reputation as an ethical producer - was swift to respond with a set of new welfare regulations for young calves [3]. In this way, New Zealand’s relationship with a higher-welfare country provided animal advocacy organisations with a point of leverage with which to improve the lives of young calves.

Taking advantage of trade links can be more mundane. Examples that have come up in my work: most of Chile’s salmon is exported to China, the United States, and other countries; much of Turkey’s bass and bream is exported to the EU and the UK; and much of Denmark’s trout is exported to Germany. In these cases, it is often possible to influence the welfare of fish by talking not to the producing country but the importing country. To take the Turkish example, producers of bass and bream in Turkey who sell to UK markets are often required to perform stunning before slaughter (a common and important animal welfare policy). In this case, supermarket policy in the UK affects the welfare of fish farmed in Turkey. And when these same Turkish producers are harvesting a batch of bass and bream for a non-UK country, they simply turn the stunning machine off!

3. Trade links, for lower-welfare countries that import from higher-welfare countries

If a retailer imports meat or animal products from a higher-welfare jurisdiction, this can provide that retailer with negotiating power. During negotiations with local producers, the retailer has the credible threat of being able to sell imported, higher-welfare products. In this way, the retailer can pressure local producers into adopting the higher-welfare practices.

Again considering the campaign to ban sow stalls in Australia, one reason why this campaign succeeded was that a major Australian retailer decided to phase out sow stalls in its products. The retailer wanted to appeal to consumers, and it had the option of importing sow stall-free meat from the EU. This meant that the retailer could negotiate with Australia’s pig industry and credibly threaten to stop selling the Australian products unless the industry also phased out sow stalls [1]. The existence of an alternative, higher-welfare supply - and combined with the considerable power of retailers in Australia [4] - enabled retailers and industry to phase out sow stalls.

Thinking globally to help more animals

Relationships between higher- and lower-welfare countries can provide tools for animal advocacy organisations to improve the lives of more animals. What country do you live in, and what countries do you trade with? How might global relationships give you points of leverage that you can use in your campaign? If you advocate for animals in a lower-welfare country, these tools can help your campaign succeed. If you advocate for animals in the EU, the UK, or another jurisdiction leading in animal welfare, your work could have a higher impact than you might think. If you belong to an alliance or a coalition, connecting organisations in lower- and higher-welfare countries can open doors to new, impactful campaigns to improve the lives of animals around the world.

References

1 Carey, R. et al. (2020) How free is sow stall free? Incremental regulatory reform and industry co‐optation of activism. Law Policy 42, 284–309 2 Bradford, A. (2020) The Brussels Effect: How the European Union Rules the World, Oxford University Press. 3 Duffield, D. (2020) Reputation, Regulatory Capture, and Reform: The Case of New Zealand’s Bobby Calves. Anim. Learn. Behav. 26, 321 4 Carey, R. et al. (2017) Capturing the meaning of “free range”: The contest between producers, supermarkets and consumers for the higher welfare egg label in Australia. J. Rural Stud. 54, 266–275