Animal welfare legislation varies enormously globally, from comprehensive frameworks in the EU and UK to minimal protections in many developing nations. Understanding this landscape guides effective advocacy for legislative improvement.
The global animal welfare legislative landscape is profoundly unequal. Animals in the EU and UK have legal protections that animals in most of the world lack entirely. This gap matters enormously for welfare outcomes: legislation, even imperfectly enforced, sets minimum standards that industry follows, enables civil society monitoring, and provides legal mechanisms for welfare improvements. Legislative advocacy — supporting stronger laws in countries with weak protections and strengthening enforcement in countries with good laws on paper — is one of the highest-leverage interventions available to animal welfare advocates. International trade agreements increasingly include animal welfare provisions, creating additional policy levers.