The EU Seal Products Ban ? Why Ineffective Animal Welfare Protection Cannot Justify Trade Restrictions under European and International Trade Law

• Author: Martin Hennig
• Pages: 74-86

The EU Seal Products Ban



Why

Ineffective Animal Welfare Protection

Cannot Justify Trade Restrictions under

European and International Trade Law

Martin Hennig*,

Postdoc, Ph.D, Faculty of Law, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway

Abstract

In this article, the author questions the legitimacy of the general ban on trade in seal products

adopted by the European Union. It is submitted that the EU Seal Regime, which permits the

marketing of Greenlandic seal products derived from Inuit hunts, but excludes Canadian and

Norwegian seal products from the European market, does not ensure a satisfactory degree of

animal welfare protection in order to justify the comprehensive trade restriction in place. It is

argued that the current ineffective EU ban on seal products, which according to the WTO

Appellate Body cannot be reconciled with the objective of protecting animal welfare, has no legal

basis in EU Treaties and should be annulled.

Keywords: Trade in seal products;animal welfare;rights of indigenous peoples;EU law;

WTO law;Arctic

Received: August 2014; Accepted: January 2015; Published: March 2015

1. Introduction

Trade in seal products is controversial because it raises profound animal welfare

concerns among European citizens and governments.

1

Images of seal hunting

distributed through the mass media, portraying some of the methods involved in the

hunts, such as the shooting and clubbing of seals, have motivated interest groups and

national politicians to seek to put an end to the hunts. In response to the demands for

improved animal welfare, the European Union decided in September 2009 to ban

trade in seal products throughout the entire European internal market by adopting

Regulation (EC) No. 1007/2009.

2

*Correspondence to: Martin Hennig, Postdoc, Ph.D., Faculty of Law, UiT The Arctic University

of Norway, Tromsø, Norway. Email: martin.hennig@uit.no

Arctic Review on Law and Politics

Vol. 6, No. 1, 2015, pp. 7486

#2015 M. Hennig. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution

4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), allowing third parties to copy and redistribute

the material in any medium or format and to remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even

commercially, provided the original work is properly cited and states its license.

Citation: M. Hennig. ‘‘The EU Seal Products Ban Why Ineffective Animal Welfare Protection Cannot Justify Trade

Restrictions under European and International Trade Law.’’ Arctic Review on Law and Politics, Vol. 6, No. 1, 2015, pp. 7486.

http://dx.doi.org/10.17585/arctic.v6.77 74