International frameworks for animal welfare remain fragmented and weak, creating opportunities for regulatory arbitrage and leaving billions of animals unprotected by meaningful standards.
The governance of animal welfare at an international level remains inadequate relative to the scale of animal use and suffering in global food, research, and trade systems. Voluntary guidelines with no enforcement mechanism create a race to the bottom where competitive pressure pushes production toward the least welfare-protective jurisdictions. Strengthening international animal welfare governance — through binding trade provisions, OIE standard reform, and bilateral welfare equivalence requirements — would create the level playing field needed for domestic welfare improvements to be sustainable. This requires political will from major importing nations and sustained advocacy from civil society across borders.