Eva Johan is a PhD Candidate in the Law Group at Wageningen University (WUR, the Netherlands). She holds a Bachelor of Law and a Master in International Law from Indonesia. She is active in advocating local people in Indonesia and participating in some international courses and conferences. She engages in bridging the implementation of International Law to domestic policy.

Her PhD project is related to domestic Halal policy, focusing on Halal regulation that emerges as an example of raises profound questions for the global multi-level economic legal order, especially under WTO Law. It is legally questionable how far domestic Halal regulation creates obstacles to trade. Accordingly, her thesis strives to contribute to addressing this gap from a legal perspective by conducting a case study of ASEAN Halal harmonization and Indonesia mandatory Halal law.

She deploys four folds approaches for the methodology, including the normative legal approach, empirical-data approach, comparative (legal) study, and qualitative analysis approach.

Her specialty is International (Economic) Law, WTO Law, Food Law and Consumer Law with the domain of Halal food (standard, certification, and labeling), food safety, Agriculture product, trade, and social-religious aspects. She is keen to discuss and research any further issues coverage and is not limited to her interest mentioned above.

For questions, feel free to send an email at eva.johan@wur.nl

The public regulation of Halal measures by national states is becoming increasingly common, but can raise concerns about WTO law compliance, particularly how to balance the free trade rationale with the regulatory policies pursued. This PhD dissertation examines how domestic Halal measures at regional and country level can ensure compliance with WTO Law.

In order to do so, first, the PhD provides a better empirical and legal understanding as to what are the trade law concerns relating to Halal measures at the WTO level. Second, the project delivers the legal criteria that determine the conditions under which Halal measures are WTO law compliant. The project further deploys a national and a regional case study: it evaluates the WTO compliance of mandatory certification under the Indonesia Halal Act with other (voluntary) forms of certification in a comparative study. At the regional level, the PhD thesis analyses ongoing harmonization of Halal measures within ASEAN, and examines harmonization efforts at regional level as a potential solution to trade concerns.

Through this research, the thesis strives to identify novel legal ways for balancing the legitimacy of regulating halal with trade concerns and aims to formulate recommendations as to how and at which level to design a legal framework that allows for such a balancing.