Kinds of Harm: Animal Law Language from a Scientific Perspective.

Tomasz Pietrzykowski,Katarzyna Smilowska

doi:10.3390/ani12050557

Abstract

Simple SummaryClarity and consistency of legal language are essential qualities of the law. Without a sufficient level of those, legal acts are often hardly capable of determining legal duties appropriately. The review of rules governing the protection of animals reveals that the current language remains far from satisfactory. Therefore, the paper discusses the most sensitive notions relevant for defining animal harm and argues for action to make the legal language of respective legal regulations more scientifically accurate and adequate to the actual needs of animal protection.The current language of animal welfare laws is inconsistent and unclear in the basic terms pertaining to animal sensations and potential harms. In the case of law, the exact language often plays an essential role in determining legal duties and establishing their scope. Thus, for further progress in animal law, a coherent and unified basic conceptual framework is needed. To establish such a framework, the relevant legal terminology should be discussed in a prescriptive rather than interpretive manner while drawing on the medical sciences. Here, we propose a way to clarify the relevant terms to prevent misconceptions and improve the consistency of animal law.

Highlights

A review of the terminology appearing in animal welfare legislation across many countries indicates that there is no well-established, uniform or commonly accepted conceptual apparatus of the legal language relating to animal sensations, nor are there agreed-upon definitions of key terms
Even if the interpretation of law is often able to overcome the inconsistencies of the language used by the legislator and improve the coherence and clarity of the conceptual apparatus of the law, the manner in which the terms are used in the legal texts is by no means immaterial
The concept of harm, which is used in legal language in the context of animal protection, seems to have an even broader meaning that is categorically different

Summary

Introduction

A review of the terminology appearing in animal welfare legislation across many countries indicates that there is no well-established, uniform or commonly accepted conceptual apparatus of the legal language relating to animal sensations, nor are there agreed-upon definitions of key terms Terms such as ‘suffering’, ‘pain’, ‘distress’, ‘anxiety’, ‘fear’ and ‘harm’ are the most commonly used within the different European and American welfare laws. The European Convention for the Protection of Animals for Slaughter from 1979 established that its provisions were designed to ‘spare animals suffering and pain’ (CETS no 102), while the European Convention for the Protection of Animals kept for Farming Purposes from 1976 stipulated that inflicting ‘unnecessary suffering or injury’ of animals should be avoided (CETS No 82) Still another term can be found in the EU Regulation on Trade in Seal Products 1007/2009, in which seals were recognised as ‘sentient beings that can experience pain, distress, fear and other forms of suffering’ (OJ L 286). Irrespective of the intricacies and traps of the law-making process partially determined by political considerations, the scientific and linguistic precision of drafting bills pertaining to animal law is a value in itself

Pain and Distress

Suffering

Conclusions