Animal Welfare Barriers under the Framework of International Trade and China's Legal Responses

Abstract

With the improvement of animal welfare standards in global trade, animal welfare trade barriers have gradually become a new means for developed countries to restrict the import of animal-derived products from developing countries. Based on the framework of international trade, this paper systematically analyzes the legal connotations, causes and legal disputes of animal welfare trade barriers, and explores their impact on China's export trade and legal response strategies. The study shows that animal welfare barriers have both ethical rationality and trade protection concealment, and their formation stems from the agricultural protection tradition in developed countries, consumer safety needs and the fragmentation of international rules. At the level of international law, WTO provisions (such as Article 20 of the GATT 2 and the SPS Agreement 3) provide a legal basis for animal welfare measures, but they are prone to cause trade disputes due to the ambiguity of their standards and discrimination in practice. For China, such barriers have led to restrictions on the export of traditional Chinese medicine, livestock and aquatic products, increased production costs and intensified trade frictions, but they have also forced domestic animal welfare legislation and technological upgrades. At the international level, it is necessary to make good use of the WTO dispute mechanism and promote negotiations on mutual recognition of standards; At the domestic level, phased legislation should be improved, technical subsidies strengthened and early warning systems established. This article argues that developing countries need to balance ethical goals for animal welfare and trade fairness on the basis of respecting international rules and differences in national conditions and resist unilateral protectionism in order to achieve sustainable development.