Abstract
Our article argues that non-human animals deserve to be treated as something more than property to be abused, exploited, or expended. Such an examination lies at the heart of green criminology and law—an intersection of which we consider more thoroughly. Drawing upon our respective and collective works, we endeavor to engage in a discussion that highlights the significance of green criminology for law and suggests how law can provide opportunities to further green criminological inquiry. How the law is acutely relevant for constituting the animal goes hand in glove with how humanness and animality are embedded deeply in the construction of law and society. We contend that, when paired together, green criminology and law have the potential to reconstitute the animal as something more than mere property within law, shed light on the anthropocentric logics at play within the criminal justice system, and promote positive changes to animal cruelty legislation. Scholarship could benefit greatly from moving into new lines of inquiry that emphasize “more-than-human legalities”. Such inquiry has the power to promote the advocacy-oriented scholarship of animal rights and species justice.
Highlights
Billions of animals1 continue to be oppressed, exploited and devalued in parts of Western society, and to add to this oppression, “animals have and continue to be perceived as living property in our legal system[s], which [are] conceived by and for human beings” (Verbora 2015, pp. 62–63)
While legal protections afforded to animals have improved, what role does green criminology play in this discussion? Can green criminological insight move the legal dial towards substantial progress for species justice? can law contribute new perspectives into green criminological scholarship?
Our article intends to answer these questions in the affirmative, and endeavors to engage in a discussion which highlights the significance of green criminology for law2 and the ways in which law can provide opportunities to further green criminological inquiry
Summary
Billions of animals continue to be oppressed, exploited and devalued in parts of Western society, and to add to this oppression, “animals have and continue to be perceived as living property in our legal system[s], which [are] conceived by and for human beings” (Verbora 2015, pp. 62–63). At other times, change can occur when an unattended issue has undergone tremendous social metamorphosis, such that rights based instruments (e.g., constitutions, rights codes), pressure legal actors to push for attendant change (as was the case when Canada’s prohibition on prostitution was declared unconstitutional in Canada in (AG) v Bedford 2013). Legal systems sometimes struggle with conceptions of violence and cruelty towards animals; they often view animal protection solely as an environmental or welfare issue (Nurse 2013) and do not recognize how the law, in general, and criminal law, in particular, should be more reflective of practices by humans and the animals they own (Gacek and Jochelson 2017a, 2017b; Jochelson and Gacek 2018). Such overlaps have potentially fruitful consequences, in taking a modest step forward in interdisciplinarity, but in the development of workable solutions and outcomes produced through a green criminological and legal intersection
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