High animal welfare standards in the EUand international trade – How to prevent potential‘low animal welfare havens’?

Future costs of compliance with obligatory animal welfare standards in the EU for poultry andegg production are signiWcant and may lead to relocation of production to third countries. After anoverview of diVerent rationales for complementary policies to prevent relocation, this article systematicallycompares such policies. Some policies, like multilateral agreements and labelling, may be supporting,but may not be able to prevent relocation comprehensively. Compensatory payments todomestic producers, in contrast, are eVective but disadvantage third country producers that complywith equivalent standards. Therefore, tariV discrimination may be a better alternative. A major drawbackof tariV discrimination, however, is its severe institutional requirements. Future research questionsinclude quantiWcation of potential relocation as well as transaction costs of variouscomplementary policies....