This paper analyzes the dispute Indonesia – Measures Concerning the Importation of Chicken Meat and Chicken Products from a legal-economic perspective. We evaluate alternative explanations for the motive behind Indonesia's import restrictions and conclude that they can be linked to protectionist political-economic motives and are most likely due to a self-sufficiency objective and the legal requirements attached to it. Economically, the import restrictions on chicken and other food products have led to substantial price volatility, and they impose costs on Indonesian consumers and small farmers who are net buyers of food, firms that import certain raw materials, as well as foreign exporters. Therefore, by making food more expensive and less accessible, they could reduce food security. We also argue that an additional issue with the goal of self-sufficiency in Indonesia is lack of comparative advantage in some food items, including chicken meat and chicken products. Legally, although the Panel highlighted that self-sufficiency is a legitimate policy objective that as such does not lead to a violation of WTO law, the Indonesia–Chicken case leads to the question of whether, in practice, it is feasible to implement a self-sufficiency target resorting only to WTO-compliant policies. Finally, we discuss potential alternative economic policies and examine whether Indonesia could have attained its food self-sufficiency objective in a WTO-consistent manner.

中文翻译：

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印度尼西亚——鸡肉：国际贸易与国内食品政策之间的紧张关系？

本文分析争议印度尼西亚——关于鸡肉和鸡肉产品进口的措施从法律经济的角度来看。我们评估了印尼进口限制背后动机的替代解释，并得出结论认为它们可能与保护主义的政治经济动机有关，并且很可能是由于自给自足的目标和与之相关的法律要求。在经济上，对鸡肉和其他食品的进口限制导致价格大幅波动，它们给作为食品净买家的印度尼西亚消费者和小农、进口某些原材料的公司以及外国出口商带来了成本。因此，通过使食品更加昂贵和难以获得，它们可能会降低粮食安全。我们还认为，印度尼西亚实现自给自足目标的另一个问题是某些食品缺乏比较优势，包括鸡肉和鸡肉制品。在法律上，尽管专家组强调自给自足是一个合法的政策目标，因此不会导致违反 WTO 法律，但印度尼西亚-鸡肉案例引出的问题是，在实践中，仅依靠符合 WTO 的政策来实现自给自足目标是否可行。最后，我们讨论了潜在的替代经济政策，并研究了印度尼西亚是否能够以与 WTO 一致的方式实现其粮食自给自足的目标。