Animal Rights Law - Chapter 4

Chapter 4 - The Legal Theory of Animal Rights

Introduction

For a supplementary perspective, arguing that advocacy centred on the duties of humans to animals rather than the rights of animals would focus discussion, more appropriately, on the oppressive conduct of humans and related justifications, see: Taimie L Bryant, ‘Animals Unmodified: Defining Animals/Defining Human Obligations to Animals’ [2006] University of Chicago Legal Forum 137, available at https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/uclf/vol2006/iss1/6/. For a similar argument about rights-discourse being impoverished politically, see: Rüdiger Bittner, ‘On Invoking Human Rights When There Aren’t Any’ in Susanne Kaul and David Kim (eds), Imagining human rights (De Gruyter 2015), available at https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110376616-006

For a reflection on the nature of rights theories, see: Alon Harel, ‘Theories of Rights’ in Martin P Golding and William A Edmundson (eds), The Blackwell guide to the philosophy of law and legal theory (Blackwell 2008), available at https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470690116.ch13

For an argument that wildlife should be granted the legal right to own property, see: Karen Bradshaw, Wildlife as Property Owners: A New Conception of Animal Rights (University of Chicago Press 2020), available at https://academic.oup.com/chicago-scholarship-online/book/37576

For a supplementary perspective on legal rights-holding and/or legal personhood as a political boundary problem, see: Elias L Khalil, ‘What Determines the Boundary of Civil Society? Hume, Smith and the Justification of European Exploitation of Non-Europeans’ (2013) 60 Theoria 26, available at https://www.jstor.org/stable/42705247

Are Animals Fit to Have Legal Rights?

For a comparison and elaboration of Will and Interest Theories with reference to animal rights, see: Michael Wilkinson, ‘Animal Rights: A Test Case for Theories of Rights’ (1998) 1998 UCL Jurisprudence Review 144, available at https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/ucljurev5&div=13&id=&page=

For an elaboration on and defense of Raz’s interest theory approach to legal rights, see: Aleardo Zanghellini, ‘Raz on Rights: Human Rights, Fundamental Rights, and Balancing’ (2017) 30 Ratio Juris 25, available at https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9337.2011.00502.x

For literature on animal agency and will that is expressed through resistance to human oppression, see: Bob Carter and Nick Charles, ‘Animals, Agency and Resistance’ (2013) 43 Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 322, available at https://doi.org/10.1111/jtsb.12019 and Sarat Colling, Animal Resistance in the Global Capitalist Era (Michigan State University Press 2021), available at https://msupress.org/9781611863772/animal-resistance-in-the-global-capitalist-era/

For a discussion of rights inflation with reference to animal rights, see: Carl Wellman, ‘Some Critical Questions’, ‘Animal Rights and Environmental Ethics’, The Proliferation of Rights: Moral Progress or Empty Rhetoric? (Routledge 2018), available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9780429495922/proliferation-rights-carl-wellman

For a critique of the critique of rights inflation, as denigrating new claims for justice, see: Jens T Theilen, ‘The Inflation of Human Rights: A Deconstruction’ (2021) 34 Leiden Journal of International Law 831, available at https://doi.org/10.1017/S0922156521000297

For an argument that intrinsic value can be based on an entity’s instrumental value, see: Shelly Kagan, ‘Rethinking Intrinsic Value’ (1998) 2 The Journal of Ethics 277, available at https://www.jstor.org/stable/25115588

For a discussion of balancing, including reference to the issue of sufficiently important interests under an interest-based approach, see: Jeremy Waldron, ‘Rights in Conflict’ (1989) 99 Ethics 503, available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2380863#metadata_info_tab_contents

For a detailed conceptual analysis of legal rights theories with reference to animal rights, which concludes that legal rights should not be granted to animals, see: Torben Spaak, ‘Animal Law: Human Duties or Animal Rights?’, available at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344445577_Animal_Law_Human_Duties_or_Animal_Rights

Do Animals Already Have Legal Rights?

For an argument that applies Hohfeld’s framework to argue that animals currently have legal rights in a specific jurisdiction—South Africa—see: David Bilchitz, ‘Moving Beyond Arbitrariness: The Legal Personhood And Dignity Of Non-Human Animals’ (2009) 25 South African Journal on Human Rights 38, available at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19962126.2009.11865192

For arguments that animals currently have legal rights regardless of their possession or lack of legal personhood, see: Jeffrey Skopek, ‘Animals in Court: Does Personhood Matter?’ (Bill of Health, 6 December 2013), available at https://blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2013/12/06/animals-in-court-does-personhood-matter/ and Jeffrey Skopek, ‘Animals Are Already Legal Persons: On Steven Wise, the Nonhuman Rights Project, and Misguided Personhood Debates’ (Bill of Health, 24 April 2014), available at https://blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2014/04/24/animals-are-already-legal-persons-on-steven-wise-the-nonhuman-rights-project-and-misguided-personhood-debates/

Would Animals Need to Become Legal Persons?

For a short reflection on Naffine’s work that considers the implications of extending legal personhood to animals, see: Steven Tudor, ‘Some Implications for Legal Personhood of Extending Legal Rights to Non-Human Animals’ (2010) 35 Australian Journal of Legal Philosophy 134, available at http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/AUJlLawPhil/2010/13.pdf

For a further argument against the position that a legal person must be able to bear duties, see: Brief for Amicus Curiae Laurence H Tribe in Support of Petitioner-Appellant Nonhuman Rights Project, inc., on behalf of Happy v Breheny and Wildlife Conservation Society (2020), available at: https://www.nonhumanrights.org/content/uploads/2020-02581_Proposed-Brief-of-Laurence-H.-Tribe-as-Amicus-Curiae.pdf

For a consideration of how the legal status of animals is changing (or de-objectification), with comments on legal personhood as a future development, see: Pablo Lerner, ‘Animals Are Not Objects but Are Not Yet Subjects: Developments in the Proprietary Status of Animals’ (2022) 18 Animal & Natural Resource Law Review 267, available at https://ssrn.com/abstract=4251828

For an analytical discussion of the nature of legal personhood, see: Tomasz Pietrzykowski, ‘What Is Legal Personhood?’, Personhood Beyond Humanism: Animals, Chimeras, Autonomous Agents and the Law (1st ed. 2018, Springer International Publishing: Imprint: Springer 2018), available at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78881-4_2

For a broad discussion of legal personhood for animals, see: Aisulu Sailaukhanova and Joseph Luke, ‘Legal Personhood of Animals’ in Maria Baideldinova, Federico Dalpane and Daria Chernyaeva (eds), Animal Law in Kazakhstan, Russia, and Worldwide: Collection of Essays (Almaty 2021), available at https://pravo.hse.ru/data/2021/05/20/1434677764/Animal%20Law%20in%20Kazakhstan%202021.pdf

For the idea that legal personhood functions as the “right to have rights” (a phrase coined by Hannah Arendt) in line with the Traditional View of personhood and the thick conception of legal rights, see: Raffael N Fasel, ‘The Leo and Hercules Trial: An Historic Step for Animal Rights or Business as Usual?’ (GBS schweiz, 26 May 2015), available at https://gbs-schweiz.org/blog/legal-personhood-and-rights/index.html

For an argument about the socio-political conditions that must be in place for a foundational, Arendtian right to have rights to be meaningful, see: James D Ingram, ‘What Is a “Right to Have Rights”? Three Images of the Politics of Human Rights’ (2008) 102 The American Political Science Review 401, available at https://www.jstor.org/stable/27644535

For a short but recent restatement by Francione of his key views, see: Gary L Francione, ‘Some Brief Comments on Animal Rights’ (2020) 10 Animal Frontiers 29, available at https://doi.org/10.1093/af/vfz050

For reviews of Wise’s theory, see: Daniel Davison-Vecchione and Kate Pambos, ‘Steven M. Wise and the Common Law Case for Animal Rights: Full Steam Ahead’ (2017) 30 Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence 387, available at https://doi.org/10.1017/cjlj.2017.14 and Robert RM Verchick, ‘A New Species of Rights’ (2001) 89 California Law Review 207, available at https://www.jstor.org/stable/3481176

For more critical reviews and a rejoinder by Wise, see: Richard A Posner, ‘Animal Rights’ (2000) 110 Yale Law Journal 527, available at https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/journal_articles/2638/, Cass R Sunstein, ‘Standing for Animals (with Notes on Animal Rights)’ (2000) 47 University of California Law Review 1333, available at https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/journal_articles/8560/ and Steven M Wise, ‘Rattling the Cage Defended’ (2002) 43(3) Boston College Law Review 623, available at https://lira.bc.edu/work/ns/1a0e5bfd-9af6-4438-a610-31d5e4c6f827

For a comparison of Francione’s and Wise’s theories from an outsider perspective to animal law, focusing on their strategic potential, see: Douglas E Beloof, ‘Crime Victims’ Rights: Critical Concepts for Animal Rights’ (2001) 7 Animal Law 19, available at https://www.animallaw.info/article/crime-victims%C2%92-rights-critical-concepts-animal-rights
For a review of Kurki’s theory of personhood, and a rejoinder by Kurki debating the relevance of thin and thick rights in Francione’s and Wise’s theories, see: Raffael N Fasel, ‘Shaving Ockham: A Review of Visa A.J. Kurki’s “A Theory of Legal Personhood”’ (2021) 44 Revus, available at https://doi.org/10.4000/revus.6921 and Visa AJ Kurki, ‘On Legal Personhood: Rejoinders, Reflections and Restatements’ (2021) 44 Revus, available at https://doi.org/10.4000/revus.7425

For a more general review of Kurki’s theory, see: Angela Fernandez, ‘The “Bundle” or “Cluster” Theory of Legal Personhood in Its Active and Passive “Incidents”: What Might It Mean for Non-human Animals? (Review)’ (2022) 12 Journal of Animal Ethics 2, 224, available https://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/uip/jane/article-abstract/12/2/192/319427/The-Bundle-or-Cluster-Theory-of-Legal-Personhood

For an analysis of four types of legal personification for animals through personhood, drawing on French legal theory, see: David Chauvet, ‘Four Kinds of Nonhuman Animal Legal Personification’ (2020) 8 Global Journal of Animal Law 1, available at https://ojs.abo.fi/ojs/index.php/gjal/article/view/1670

For an argument that animals can be personified as legal persons, and should be, to shift perceptions of animals as being intrinsically valuable, see: Jane Nosworthy, ‘The Koko Dilemma – A Challenge to Legal Personality’ (1998) 2 Southern Cross University Law Review 1, available at http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/SCULawRw/1998/2.html

For an argument that animals do have an intrinsic interest in liberty, see: Marc G Wilcox, ‘The Intrinsic Value of Liberty for Non-Human Animals’ (2021) 55 Journal of Value Inquiry 685, available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-020-09762-1

For a critique of human-centric notions of legal personhood, see: Alexis Dyschkant, ‘Legal Personhood: How We Are Getting It Wrong’ (2015) 5 University of Illinois Law Review 2075, available at https://illinoislawreview.org/print/volume-2015-issue-5/legal-personhood-how-we-are-getting-it-wrong/

For a consideration of the potential for animals to be protected as property, which consciously moves past property and personhood as a dichotomy, drawing on a multidisciplinary set of sources, see: Johanna Gibson, ‘Animals and Property’ in Nicole Graham, Margaret Davies and Lee Godden (eds), The Routledge handbook of property, law, and society (Routledge 2022), available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003139614-29/animals-property-johanna-gibson?context=ubx&refId=21109412-1a27-48c3-bcd2-857ecc55a718

Conclusion

For an argument that animal protection legislation confers rights on animals, which addresses several themes from this chapter, see: Darren Sean Calley, ‘Human Duties, Animal Suffering, and Animal Rights: A Legal Reevaluation’ in Andrew Linzey and Clair Linzey (eds), The Palgrave Handbook of Practical Animal Ethics (1st ed. 2018, Palgrave Macmillan UK: Imprint: Palgrave Macmillan 2018), available at https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-36671-9_24

For an argument that animals can be considered legal persons under any of four conceptions of legal personhood, which covers several themes from the chapter, see: Macarena Montes Franceschini, ‘Traditional Conceptions of the Legal Person and Nonhuman Animals’ (2022) 12 Animals 2590, available at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36230329/

For a religious (Jewish) perspective on legal personhood for animals, see: Mark Goldfeder, ‘Law and Religion for Nonhuman Persons’ (2013) 2 Global Journal of Animal Law 1, available at https://ojs.abo.fi/ojs/index.php/gjal/article/view/1297