Animal Law: What Is Left to be Said by the Law About Animals

Abstract

The Law has concerned itself little with animals. Until recent times the treatment of animals was a residual element for legal frameworks, in contrast with the vivid interest from thought, history, art and culture that has always aroused the human-animal relationship. The elements that have contributed to the inversion of this situation can be summarily enumerated: an advance in Animal Welfare Sciences, a change of mentality by a society that is increasingly more sensitive to animal suffering, and the need to regulate new forms of relations between humans and animals, within the context of a global society. This contribution will subject the changes introduced by the Law regarding the treatment of animals, in various geographical areas and in different forms, to critical review. It will analyse the influences of the “animal turn” in legal studies, especially as animal sentience seems to have erected itself the backbone for the changing processes undergone by Animal Law in recent decades, essentially, the De-objectification of animals, the Constitutionalisation of animals and the Globalisation of animals.