International trade in halal food is an important test case for the practical implications of the notion of Islamic moral economy. While Islamic teachings on food, at the individual level, are relatively clear and unambiguous their connection to the regulatory level is uncertain and contested. The research problem driving the project is the absence of a coherent, purpose-designed regulatory system for international trade in halal food. Instead, trade is governed by a hybrid and incomplete combination of WTO rules, competing third-party certification schemes, and public policy operated by fluid and interactive configurations of public, private and religious actors.

Bridging contemporary theories of regulatory governance and Islamic studies, this project develops a novel approach to observing the regulatory tensions between the values of 1990s neoliberalism frozen in WTO food trade rules, Islamic requirements for the food system and food sovereignty goals. Data will be created in three case studies of the regulatory governance of food (UK internal market, EU single market and WTO rules) and analysed to offer knowledge about possibilities for governing international food trade that go beyond seeing halal standards as fixed and limited, based on a literal interpretation of Islamic scriptures around animal slaughtering, to allow for changing and innovative Islamic interpretations of a moral economy of food within contemporary capitalism. This will generate knowledge about: (i) the extent to which WTO rules lock-in the commodification of food trade and limit possibilities for halal regulation; (ii) the role of Muslim consumer demands in driving halal standards; (iii) standards alliances between halal certification schemes and food sovereignty movements seeking to contest neoliberal rules for the commodification of food trade.