The proposal for a European Health Data Space aims at creating a common space where individuals may control their health data in a trusted and secure way. The objective is not only improving healthcare delivery, but also enhancing the opportunities to use health data for research and innovation. To achieve these results, the proposal implements a mandatory self-certification scheme for European health records systems as well as for wellness devices and applications, setting up essential requirements related to interoperability and security. Although this is the first intervention that sets a horizontal framework that is mandatory for all Member States, the security requirements that are included in the legislative proposal are not sufficiently detailed and comprehensive. Given that cyberthreats are increasing and security incidents affecting health data may potentially have an impact on the lives of patients, it is important that cybersecurity measures are adopted and implemented in the most effective way. The paper will analyse the European Health Data Space proposal pointing to the open issues and doubts that may be emerging and it will compare them with the proposed Cyber Resilience Act, identifying the issues that may be solved thanks to this horizontal regulation and the ones that instead remain open.

This article systematically evaluates whether, how, and to what extent twelve prominent forestry and fisheries certification schemes address human rights in their standards. In line with the broader cross-fertilization of the fields of international human rights and environmental law and policy, our results demonstrate that human rights norms and considerations – primarily Indigenous, labour, and procedural rights – are increasingly reflected in the rulemaking of these schemes. At the same time, our analysis also demonstrates the mixed and underwhelming performance of certification standards in protecting human rights norms, including those relating to women, children, racialized and ethnic minorities, persons with disabilities, Indigenous peoples, workers, 2SLGBTQIA+ communities, and peasants and rural peoples. Through descriptive statistics, we also show that levels of human rights adherence vary significantly across schemes and that standards developed in the forestry sector tend to outperform those for fisheries. Our methodology and results add a new dimension to efforts to assess the stringency, equity, and legitimacy of private authority in the environmental field.

Animal welfare assessment at group level is a scientific discipline that is rapidly developing. The interest in welfare assessment systems is based on an ethical concern for the welfare of farm animals. The scientific community plays an important role in delivering an appropriate repeatable, valid and feasible framework for these assessments. Consideration of the potential applications of these techniques is important for deciding upon the requirements of specific assessment systems. This paper provides a brief overview of the different types of applications, which can be categorised broadly into research, legislative requirements (non-voluntary), certification systems (voluntary) and advisory/management tools. These applications may have various goals: quantification of welfare, provision of welfare assurance or welfare management. Assessment systems vary in many characteristics, such as whether they are animal- or resource-based, and whether they are based on single or integrated scores. Different applications will require different elements of these features.

Much development work has already been done by the industry and the competent authorities in countries exporting meat to the EU, and these countries are well on their way to satisfying the requirements of Regulation (EC) No 1099/2009. The major problem for animal welfare was that the electrical parameters used for water-bath stunning of poultry were not set at levels which ensured that birds were effectively stunned. In addition, there are meat quality issues when higher currents are used. Other areas to be further developed include clarification and formalisation of the tasks of the Animal Welfare Officer; certifying competence of the relevant staff; adapting and improving or completing the existing standard operating procedures. Several countries need to make changes to their transport/delivery practices or to the arrangements for accommodating animals, so that they respect the requirement to feed and bed animals if not slaughtered within 12 hours of their arrival at the slaughterhouse.

Regarding broilers, Brazil is the third largest producer and the leading chicken meat exporter in the world. Independent certifications are required by some importers in the European Union (EU) to guarantee compliance with minimum welfare requirements. Our objective was to compare broiler chicken welfare in GLOBALGAP® certified (C) and non-certified (N) intensive farms in the State of Paraná, Brazil, using the Welfare Quality® protocol. Ten farms in each group were evaluated and data were transformed using scores that ranged from 0 to 100, where 100 is the best condition. Results suggested that farms adhered to minimum welfare standards, regardless of certification and that the adoption of standards based on overseas rules may have limitations for the improvement of animal welfare. In order to further improve broiler welfare in Brazil, more rigorous standards should be developed.

Animal welfare is multidimensional; its assessment relies on complementary measures covering all dimensions. Welfare Quality® constructed a multicriteria evaluation model for its assessment at unit level (farms, slaughterhouses). Four welfare principles are distinguished (‘Good feeding’, ‘Good housing’, ‘Good health’, and ‘Appropriate behaviour’). An animal unit receives four principle scores (expressed on a 0-100 value scale). These scores are aggregated together to form the overall assessment by sorting animal units into predefined welfare categories boundaried by reference profiles. A unit is assigned to the welfare category above the profile it is considered at least as good as. Several assignment procedures were tested on a set of 69 dairy farms and compared with observers’ general impressions. The welfare categories, reference profiles and assignment procedure were defined in consultation with social scientists, animal scientists and stakeholders. Four welfare categories were defined: ‘Excellent’, ‘Enhanced’, ‘Acceptable’, and ‘Not classified’. The reference profiles were set at 80, 55 and 20, corresponding to aspiration values for Excellent, Enhanced and Acceptable. The assignment procedure resulted from a compromise between theoretical opinion on what should be considered excellent, enhanced or acceptable, and what can realistically be achieved in practice: to be assigned to a given category, a unit must reach its aspiration value on 2 or 3 of the 4 principles, and not score below the aspiration value for the next lowest category on the other principle(s). The model can be used for several purposes, including identifying welfare problems on a farm to advise farmers, or checking compliance with certification schemes.

There have been important developments in the measurement of farm animal welfare in recent years. Measuring animal welfare is one thing, implementing a farm animal welfare assessment system another. The implementation of such a system occurs in an environment that is influenced by economic, political, technological and socio-cultural factors which interact with each other. This creates enormous complexity, generates a huge number of different potential ‘futures’, and makes the eventual impact that the system will have on the welfare of farm animals uncertain. This article draws upon strategic management literature to apply scenario analysis as a technique to help understand the variance of the uncertainty associated with the implementation of an animal welfare assessment scheme. Specifically, it develops two extreme scenarios based on a theoretical European-wide implementation: one scenario in which all uncertain factors influence the implementation of the assessment system in a negative way, and one scenario in which all these factors have positive impacts. These scenarios provide insight into the variance of possible futures in which the system may have to function. Although consumers are an important stakeholder group, their role in creating uncertainty for the system may be overestimated; it is apparent that the roles of companies, brands and certification organisations deserve significant attention, as well as any relevant institutional structure.

This paper discusses the current state of development of on-farm cattle welfare assessment systems with special regard to the approach of Welfare Quality® that focuses on animal-related measures. The central criteria validity, reliability and feasibility are considered with regard to selected welfare measures. All welfare measures incorporated into the Welfare Quality® protocol possess face validity, but for most of them construct or criterion validity as, eg shown for lameness, have not been demonstrated. Exemplarily the cases of qualitative behaviour assessment and measurement of avoidance distance towards humans or social licking are discussed. Reliability issues have often been neglected in the past and require more thorough investigation and discussion in the future, especially with respect to appropriate test statistics and limits of acceptability. Means of improving reliability are the refinement of definitions or recording methods and training. Consistency of results over time requires further attention, especially if farms are to be certified, based on infrequent recordings. Considering feasibility, time constraints are the main concern for assessment systems that focus seriously on animal-based measures; currently they require several hours of on-farm recordings, eg about 6 h for a herd of 60 dairy cows. The Welfare Quality® project has promoted knowledge and discussion about validity, reliability and feasibility issues. Many welfare measures applied in the Welfare Quality® on-farm assessment approach can be regarded sufficiently valid, reliable and feasible. However, there are still a considerable number of challenges. They should be tackled while using the present assessment system in order to constantly improve it.