Can Animal Welfare Serve as a Climate Adaptation Tool? The EU Law Barriers to Integrated Regulation
CLIMA lunch seminar with Lucie Nersesjan.
The seminar examines whether animal welfare measures can operate as instruments of climate adaptation within EU regulation of intensive livestock farming. It takes as its starting point the observation that welfare-related requirements may also influence the capacity of livestock systems to withstand heat stress, disease pressure and other climate-related risks. It then explores why this adaptive function remains insufficiently recognised in EU law, focusing on the separation between animal welfare law and environmental law, the asymmetrical design of Articles 11 and 13 TFEU, and the reproduction of this divide in secondary legislation, including the animal welfare acquis, environmental permitting and the Common Agricultural Policy. The seminar thereby highlights broader limits of integrated regulation in addressing climate risks in livestock systems.
About the speaker
Lucie Nersesjan is a PhD candidate and research assistant at the Department of Environmental and Land Law, Faculty of Law, Masaryk University, where she also teaches and assists in environmental law courses. Her research focuses on the legal requirements for climate protection in intensive livestock farming, with particular emphasis on environmental impact assessment, integrated pollution prevention and control, and the intersection of environmental protection and animal welfare. Her broader academic interests include environmental law, agricultural law, and food law, particularly the legal regulation of livestock farming and sustainability in agriculture.