One Health in EU Animal Welfare Legislation: Normative Trends and Developments

The concept of One Health originated at the interface between animal and human health, aiming to encompass a broader range of expertise beyond health and veterinary sciences. Over time, it broadened its perspective to include the environment. This paper focuses on the role that One Health plays in the framework of EU animal welfare legislation, whose regulatory approach to non-humans has been lacking in due consideration for a comprehensive perspective on the correlations and interactions among humans, animals and the environment. The analysis posits that One Health, if integrated and implemented appropriately, has the potential to address the complexity of animal welfare legislation by evolving into a horizontal and fundamental principle encompassing all EU policies. It could help overcome the ambiguities surrounding the dual status of animals, while fostering a sentience-based Innovation Union that fully recognises moral and legal obligations towards the non-human world.