Investigating the History, Text and Implementation of the Animal Welfare Strategy for Africa through the lens of Third World Approaches to Internation

Full Title - Investigating the History, Text and Implementation of the Animal Welfare Strategy for Africa through the lens of Third World Approaches to International Law. Context This research project investigates the Animal Welfare Strategy for Africa (AWSA) as a case study of new regional and international animal welfare legal initiatives to deepen our understanding of how such legal initiatives are

impacted by local and cultural perceptions on human-animal relationships. AWSA is one of various regional and international animal welfare strategies and other legal initiatives created in recent decades such as the World Organisation for Animal Health's (WOAH) chapter on stray dog population. This project explores what we can learn

from applying Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) as a methodological lens within an analysis of AWSA. This approach is necessary to clarify the legal approaches to animal protection in specific African states like Nigeria, South- Africa and Zimbabwe. The term 'global animal law' was birthed out of a need to harmonise varying

global perspectives on animal welfare within multilateral legal instruments (Peters 2020). While a growing body of scholars are considering means to prioritise animal welfare in international law and policymaking (Favre 2021),

some scholars recognise that these "global" initiatives, through overfocusing on "harmonisation", have been dominated by Global North approaches to law and policy development. For this reason, they have neglected expertise, perspectives, and experiences of the Global South (Offor 2022). This research will result in a set of

recommendations for international law making toward stronger animal welfare standards that could resolve current deadlocks (Blattner 2015) by better acknowledging and managing local and cultural considerations. Research Questions How can TWAIL deepen our understanding of how engagement with local and cultural perspectives impact upon

the development of international law standards for animal welfare, using the African Union's AWSA as a case study? - How are local and cultural perspectives incorporated into the history, text, and implementation of the African Union's AWSA? - How effective is the AWSA as a tool to improve animal welfare legal standards in African Union members?

- How can the case study of the AWSA inform specific policy making efforts like the UN Convention on Animal Health and Protection? Methods 1. Gather primary documents from the negotiation of the AWSA, the text of the AWSA, and documents detailing its implementation in African Union member states as subjects as a dataset for this project and subjects for doctrinal,

document analysis. 2. Conduct literature review on TWAIL and its perspectives on non-human animals to develop a methodological lens through which to conduct the documentary analysis. 3. Evaluate findings with regard to AWSA and propose recommendations regarding local and cultural perspectives sourced from the archives of the African Union and WOAH.

Impact - Make original contribution to knowledge by filling knowledge gaps regarding Global South approaches to global animal law, and commencing new research agenda on AWSA, which has not been the subject of significant academic study.