Animal Law Research Articles

When Is it Right to Speak of Animal Rights?

Abstract This article examines the ways in which the language of legal rights is invoked by those seeking to improve the treatment of animals. Drawing from a range of analytical, realist, and critical legal and social theorists, it argues that certain argumentative techniques commonly employed to justify the extension of legal rights to animals may serve to strengthen and reproduce the very forms of exploitation they seek to challenge. The article begins by identifying and critiquing the binary characterisation of rights/welfare and property/personality in liberal animal law scholarship. It then employs the insights of Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin to expose and critique various appeals to an ‘exterior’ or ‘extra-legal’ domain which functions to stabilise the meaning of these doctrinal categories. In doing so, it explores the strategic viability of rights discourse in the animal advocacy movement with a view to highlighting the limitations of liberal constructions of animal rights.

Animal Law in France: Positive law, prospective law and learning the law of the living

Animal Law in France: Positive law, prospective law and learning the law of the living

What is Animal Dignity in Law?

The article seeks to understand dignity in the context of primarily European animal law. Its main claim is that the notion of dignity is used in animal law discourse to express claims of more-than-welfarism. Whereas welfarism is premised on the humane treatment of animals and the prevention of unnecessary suffering, animal dignity is premised on respect for animals. However, adopting dignity-premised legal regulation does not necessarily entail the abandonment of welfarism. Rather, jurisdictions that have adopted dignity-based animal law have left welfarist regulations mostly intact. Hence, in its current stage of development, dignity-based animal law does not replace but rather augments the welfarist regime by “plugging its gaps”. Dignity-based animal law is then identified as consisting of four aspects: non-instrumentalization, egalitarianism, flourishing, and essence-respect. Finally, the article discusses the relationship of dignity to intrinsic value, arguing that the legal recognition of animals’ dignity is neither necessary nor sufficient for a recognition of their intrinsic value as individuals.

Earth jurisprudence in South America: Trends and developments

This article aims to present an analysis of the evolution and contributions developed and integrated into the corpus of Earth Jurisprudence from practice in seven (7) South American countries where 135 records were found between 2005 and 2023. The case study was carried out using the methodological approach of the qualitative approach, the hermeneutic method, and the documentary review technique. The unit of analysis was based on the recognition of rights to nature, the data and information organized according to legal/political provisions, the state, the actor that initiated the action, and the ecological actor involved. Among the most outstanding findings, it is evident that a large number of records are concentrated in Ecuador and Colombia. The first correlates with the constitutionalization of the rights of nature and coincides with the second as they have been part of the stream known as new Latin American constitutionalism. In addition, a notable jurisprudential development recognizes nature as a subject of rights and declares it a victim of the armed conflict. Bolivia, which also joined this emerging denomination, has a different tendency than it had in its beginnings, not as the two countries mentioned above have done. Brazil stands out for its considerable increase in such legislative recognition. Argentina has a stronger emphasis on animal law. Peru has an incipient contribution to some regulatory implementation. Finally, Chile, the most laggard, tries it with a new constitution that recognizes these rights without having the approval at the ballot box. It is concluded the need to elevate the rights of nature and animals to constitutional status, claiming indigenous and ancestral cosmogonies regionally since it includes a legal stability that would facilitate the work of judicial and legislative actors and decision-makers for developing public policies, which would contribute to the practical development of the new Latin American constitutionalism and the Earth Jurisprudence.

Global Animal Law from the Margins: International Trade in Animals and Their Bodies by IyanOffor, Routledge, 2023, 320 pp.

Global Animal Law from the Margins: International Trade in Animals and Their Bodies by IyanOffor, Routledge, 2023, 320 pp.

Animal welfare as the basis of One Health: A UN convention on animal welfare, health, and protection poses a realistic solution to improved animal welfare and human health

Abstract Animal welfare is closely linked to animal health and human welfare and health, as the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) emphasizes in its Global Animal Welfare Strategy of 2017. As a result of recent pandemics, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the WOAH have created the One Health High Level Expert Panel (OHHLEP), committed to animal health and human health in the One Health Joint Plan of Action (2022–2026) and pledged to “[work] together for the Health of Humans, Animals, Plants and the Environment.” Despite these important acknowledgments and efforts from leading world organizations, including the One Health quadripartite, the latter has so far been reluctant to actively pursue the adoption of a legally binding commitment to improve the protection and welfare of animals globally. Animal welfare remains without relevant provisions. In the following, it is argued this must be integrated into the OHHLEP in addition to the creation of an “Animal Think and Do Tank” in the form of a technical working group, which would finalize a UN Convention on the issue, as proposed, e.g., in the drafted UN Convention on Animal Health and Protection (UNCAHP) 2018. The “Animal Think and Do Tank,” within its One Health context, must manifest a transdisciplinary approach, since – unlike globally binding legislation – policies, agreements, and declarations of various world organizations do not suffice to bring about a fundamental change in animal welfare. Acknowledging that animal protection is a complex and multifaceted issue involving ethical, cultural, social, religious, political, economic, and scientific dimensions (GAL Association, 2018 , Preamble), these aspects must be represented within the decision making process regarding the Convention’s content. Besides veterinarians, experts of further disciplines related to One Health must be consulted – such as lawyers and legal academics specializing in animal, international, and UN law, competent representatives of the animal welfare and animal rights movements, and ethicists and economists. Measures must be taken to improve transparency and overall confidence in the dialogue between the actors, including competent and not specifically scientific representatives of the animal protection and animal rights movement as elements of civil society to advocate for the fundamental interests of animals. One Health impact statement This article proposes that a UN Convention on Animal Health and Protection would further the enforceability of a One Health approach to human, environmental, and animal health. Science has proven that these elements are intertwined, but they remain disparate at a legislative level in many jurisdictions. It is suggested that placing animal welfare provisions on a UN-Convention footing by utilizing the positioning of the WOAH and UNEP is the most effective way of rendering One Health policy a global reality. Cooperation between professionals is imperative: scientists, policy makers, and lawyers must work together.

ARGENTINA: ENTRE O RECONHECIMENTO DOS DIREITOS DOS ANIMAIS E A INTENSIFICAÇÃO DA PECUÁRIA

Abstract The intensification of animal farming is a growing trend worldwide that poses serious environmental and animal rights challenges. In Argentina, it gained public attention for the first time after the government agreed with China to install intensive pig farms in the country in 2020. Although the environmental danger raised the most important concerns among the public, the opposition also came from animal rights advocates. This paper will offer a theoretical analysis of intensive pig farming from animal ethics and animal welfare perspectives. The analysis will include how some of the most recent advances in Argentinean case law, recognizing legal personhood for some animals, could influence the path to animal farm intensification and its regulation. The work is divided into four sections. In the first, a brief discussion of the contributions of animal ethics will be presented. The second section will describe the main concepts involved in animal welfare science. In the third section, the article will describe the life and death of pigs on intensive farms. Finally, the last section will survey Argentinean animal rights case law and animal law, highlighting the contrast between the contradictory trends: animal legal personhood recognition versus animal farming intensification.

Beyond the Unitary State: Multi-Level Governance, Politics, and Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Animal Welfare.

It is argued that extant cross-cultural research on animal welfare often overlooks or gives insufficient attention to new governance theory, civil society, politics, and the realities of devolved or (quasi-)federal, multi-level governance in the modern state. This paper synthesizes relevant social theory and draws on new empirical findings of civil society accounts of campaigning on animal welfare policies and law in the United Kingdom. It is presented as a corrective to arguably reductive, earlier unitary state-based analyses. Our core, evidence-based argument is that cognizance of civil society activism and the contrasting institutional governance structures and political cultures of constituent nations in unitary states-such as the UK-are providing opportunities for the territorialization of legally grounded animal welfare regimes, and culturally distinctive practices.

Legal, scientific, informational and ideological measures to ensure sustainable use of wildlife objects: russian and foreign experience

This article deals with the ecological education as an important means in the process of animal world preser-vation. Legal education is supposed to form a high level of legal awareness and legal culture among citizens and society. The result of legal education should be regarded in knowledge, citizens’ respectful attitude to the current legislation. According to this article, a high level of legal culture and legal education will allow everyone to realize the need to preserve the biodiversity of wild animals for the present and future generations. Based on the analysis of certain provisions of the legislation on the animal world and law enforcement practice, the article states that there is no comprehensive system of legal measures for the sustainable use of wildlife in Russia. The legal, economic, ideological, organizational measures proposed in this article will make it possible to achieve such use of the animal world that will preserve and increase the number of wild animal popula-tions, maintain ecological balance, and ensure satisfaction of the needs of present and future generations in a favorable environment. The measures proposed will create a legal basis for sustainable management of the animal world. These measures will be useful in the development of national programs for the sustainable use of wildlife, strengthening the dialogue of the authorities with the population to involve them in the process of sustainable use of wildlife objects in order to ensure a balance of economic, environmental and social interests.

Casting Justice Before Swine: Late Mediaeval Pig Trials as Instances of Human Exceptionalism

In recent years, several cases about the legal personhood of nonhuman animals garnered global attention, e.g. the recognition of ‘basic rights’ for the Argentinian great apes Sandra and Cecilia. Legal scholars have embraced the animal turn, blurring the once sovereign boundaries between persons and objects, recognising nonhuman beings as legal subjects. The zoonotic origins of the Covid-19 pandemic stress the urgency of establishing ‘global animal law’ and deconstructing anthropocentrism. To this end, it is vital to also consider the extensive premodern legal history that humans share with other animals. Over 200 so-called animal trials have been documented in premodern Europe. In these proceedings, certain nonhuman animals—particularly domestic pigs—were prosecuted, often resulting in their capital punishment or anathema. This paper takes a history of ideas approach to these historical instances where Western philosophy of law and philosophical anthropology intersect, problematising the notion that such trials constitute wholesome precedents of the kind of legal personhood presently debated in jurisprudence. My counter-hegemonic analysis of the legal prosecution and execution of several pigs in fifteenth-century France demonstrates that late mediaeval notions of criminality transcended the alleged human-nonhuman divide whilst reaffirming and reifying human distinctiveness. I propose that pig trials were local laboratories where Christian communities reflected upon the natural hierarchy of God’s creation. Ensuing the apparent breach of the prescribed boundaries of nature, these communities renegotiated and re-naturalised everyday interspecies sociability by utilising the offending animals to exemplify particular norms about what it means to be human, generally to the animals’ detriment.

Exploring the Legality of Artists’ Use of Animals: Ethical Considerations and Legal Implications

A burgeoning field of literature considers animal law, the status of animals as legal objects, the protection of animals in laboratories, wild animals, etc. One aspect not often considered in the literature is the intersection between animal law and freedom of speech and, more specifically, the freedom of speech of artists. While these might seem disparate and mutually exclusive, they are not. A small but notable number of artists use, harm, or even kill animals in the creation of artwork. Elsewhere, this practice has been termed ‘cruel art’, defined as “the infliction of physical and/or emotional pain on non-human animals for the sole purpose of creating art that steps beyond the confines of the artist’s right to freedom of speech”. This article elaborates on the concept of ‘cruel art’ by considering animal law and the artist’s freedom of expression. Interesting questions arise at this intersection: Can the law grant rights or otherwise protect the animal from being used, harmed, or killed for an artwork? Alternatively, can the law encroach on the artists’ freedom of speech to protect the animals? There are good reasons to protect both parties—animals deserve protection from unnecessary suffering, and the artist should not be unduly censored from making art. This article seeks to engage with the following question: how can one consider an animal’s legal standing in relation to an artist’s freedom of speech? In order to answer this question, this article first briefly unpacks the concept of animal law and the need for legal reform in this arena. Secondly, this article considers freedom of speech as it relates to artists specifically. Third, it discusses the rising conflict between the legal protection of animals and the artist’s freedom of expression. This article argues that certain artistic uses of animals should be legally prohibited, despite the fact that artists enjoy the right to freedom of artistic expression.

Book Review: Routledge Handbook of Animal Welfare; Knight et al., Eds.; Routledge: Abingdon, UK; New York, NY, USA, 2023; ISBN: 978-1-032-02206-2 (hbk), 978-1-032-32575-0 (pbk), 978-1-003-18235-1 (ebk).

This information-dense book, edited by two academics and an expert in law, was designed as a "comprehensive exploration of the rapidly growing fields of animal welfare and law" [...].

Evolving Conceptions of Legal Personhood: What might Recent Legal Developments Herald for Non-human Animals in Australia?

Legal personhood has traditionally been associated with human persons and their representatives, for example, corporations. Recent years, however, have seen the binary conception of legal personhood challenged and reconceived, and the circle of legal persons expanded in numerous jurisdictions. In particular, the utter failure of environmental laws to protect the environment has led to the recognition of nature bodies as legal persons. Within this context, this article considers whether these developments might lead to recognition of animals as legal persons in Australia. The parallel deficiencies of environmental and animal laws, together with the willingness of some Australian legislatures to entertain legal personhood for nature, may suggest that the concept of legal personhood for animals in Australia is not completely far-fetched.

QUESTIONING ANIMALS’ STATUS AS OBJECTS OF PROPERTY RIGHTS IN CROATIAN AND COMPARATIVE PROPERTY LAW

The proper coexistence of humans and other members of the living world is one of the essential preconditions for forming the rule of law. Through the influence of the biocentric concept, under the auspices of bioethical and animal-ethical thinking, the legal regulation of humans and animals develops within the framework of animal law as a relatively new branch of law. One of the central topics within the mentioned legal branch is the discussion of animals as objects of property (proprietary) rights and, potentially, as holders of certain legal rights. The above represents a significant challenge to property law and the theoretical foundations of civil law, given that the Croatian Ownership and Other Proprietary Rights Act does not explicitly mention the status of an animal, but the status of an animal as a thing derives from the Croatian property law doctrine. The paper analytically, historically and comparatively examines the current legal status of animals as objects of property rights. Historical insight refers to the development of the paradigmatic position of animals as things established in Roman private law. Analytical elaboration of current property law statutory provisions and reflection of property law doctrine are placed in the comparative legal context of the civil law provisions of those countries that have recognized animals as non-things or as sentient beings.

Review: Saskia Stucki, One Rights: Human and Animal Rights in the Anthropocene

Animal rights law is in need of an update. Many of its central theories were developed over 20 years ago, meaning that they fail to take account of issues that, in today’s society, are inextricably linked to the question of animal rights. Conspicuously absent in this regard is the relevance of the current climate change emergency. Saskia Stucki’s recent book ‘One Rights: Human and Animal Rights in the Anthropocene’ aims to put animal law in its contemporary context by framing animal rights as a new generation of human rights, proposing a novel paradigm of ‘One Rights’ for the Anthropocene. With its sharp and in-depth engagement with animal law literature, as well as human rights law scholarship, it provides a much-needed and nuanced view of animal rights in the 21st century.

Animal Warfare Law and the Need for an Animal Law of Peace: A Comparative Reconstruction

Abstract This Article puts forward a novel analogy between animal welfare law and international humanitarian law—two seemingly unrelated bodies of law that are both marked by the aporia of humanizing the inhumane. Through the comparative lens of the international laws of war and peace, this Article argues that existing animal welfare law is best understood as a kind of warfare law that regulates violent activities within an ongoing “war on animals.” It further submits that this animal warfare law needs to be complemented and counterbalanced by an animal law of peace, consisting of a jus animalis contra bellum and peacetime animal rights.

'Vets must be strong advocates for animal rights'.

Steven McCulloch, European veterinary specialist in animal welfare science, ethics and law, argues that the veterinary profession must support animal rights, but not the abolition of animal use.

Book Review: Beyond cages: animal law and criminal punishment by Marceau Justin

Book Review: <i>Beyond cages: animal law and criminal punishment</i> by Marceau Justin

Intestinal endoparasitism in wild cat (Felis silvestris) from Banat area (Romania).

The wild cat (Felis silvestris), spread in Romania from the Danube Delta to the mountain range is present in the Banat area, on the hunting ground that can be contaminated with different stage developmental forms of parasites, some of them having real zoonotic potential. The wild cat is an animal protected by the Romanian law of protection animals. Coprological samples from 88 wild cats from 16 hunting grounds, as well as the gastrointestinal tract collected from six wild cats cadavers and the molecular characterization of the cestodes identified in their intestines, allowed us to establish intestinal parasitic fauna. During coprological examination Isospora oocysts, tapeworm eggs, eggs of Toxocara cati, Ancylostoma spp. and Capillaria spp were found. At the same time, the form of genera Mesocestoides, Taenia, Toxocara/Toxascaris and Ancylostoma were identified at necropsy. Further polymerase chain reaction (PCR) identification revealed the species of Taenia taenieformis, and Mesocestoides litteratus, the latter providing a zoonotic potential. This study, the first in the western part of the country (Banat area, Timis County), provides information about the parasitic fauna of wild cats and underlines the importance of the human contamination risk.

Animals and Nature as Rights Holders in the European Union

This article argues that EU law can be interpreted to support the current existence of legal rights for animals and nature. While these rights have not been explicitly recognised in law, the prerequisites for doing so already exist in the EU legal order. The theoretical justifications for the protection of animals and nature differ, but the protection of both may benefit from a rights approach. Further, such a rights approach helps address jurisprudential questions pertaining to direct effect and the effectiveness of EU law, and related EU law concepts. In this article, we examine EU animal and nature protection laws to analyse where these laws can be interpreted to assign rights to non‐human natural entities. We argue that the rights animals and nature already implicitly have in EU law should have consequences for how non‐human protections should be implemented and enforced in the EU context.