legal rights of animals

8/7/2019 Legal rights of animals

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PROJECT TOPIC :-

Legal Status of Animals

SUBMITTED BY:- SUBMITTED TO:-

SETU GUPTA Mr. M.K. Tiwari.

B.A.LL.B (Hons.) 4th

Sem.

Roll No. 111


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Acknowledgement

I, Setu Gupta, student of Dr. Ram Manohar Lohiya National Law University, would like to

express my indebtedness to my teacher Mr. M.K. Tiwari, for giving me the opportunity to work

upon this topic and for giving valuable tips and suggestions.

I would also like to thank my parents who provided me with a lot of support and amiable

atmosphere at home to work upon the project. I am also thankful to my friends who helped me

in my research work for this project and, but for their help, the completion of this project

wouldnt have been possible.

At last I would like to express my gratitude towards all those who, directly or indirectly, aided

me in giving this project its final shape.


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Contents

Introduction

The Concept of Legal Personhood Legal Status of Animals: The Fact

Definitions of Legal Personhood and the Status of Animals as Property Commencement of the problem The Hypocrisy Conclusion Bibliography


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Introduction:

The legal status of animals is generally as a form of property throughout the world. A human

beings legal duties toward animals are essentially derived from duties toward their owners. If

not qualified under particular categories of law, such as endangered species acts, animals may

be bought and sold, bequeathed, and sued for. Typically also, livestock may be raised and

slaughtered for subsequent sale as food items, though this practice is usually circumscribed by

humane slaughter laws. There is also a strong normative cultural (and sometimes religious)

component to which animals, if any, may be bred for slaughter.

In most western jurisdictions, law has evolved to allow animals certain protections that

override property concerns. A pet owner, for instance, is subject to animal cruelty laws as much

with their own pet as with that of another.

Legal systems do not generally consider animals as persons, either natural or legal. At present

they are considered merely as things, as the objects of legal rights and duties, but never the

subjects of them. Eventhough animals are capable of acts and possess interests, their acts are

neither lawful, nor unlawful. There may be some cases, as in the case of a trespassing animal,

where the law permits the animal to be detained until its owner pays compensation, but it

cannot be said that this involves any legal recognition of the personality of the animal.

Animal lovers have accused the law to be anthropocentric(regarding mankind as the centre of

existence) because the law is made for men, and allows no fellowships or bonds of obligation

between them and the lower animals. No animal can be the owner of any property even

through the medium of a human being as a trustee.1

1Jayakumar N.K., Lectures in Jurisprudence, 2

ndEdn., New Delhi.


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The Concept of Legal Personhood:

The prime case of a person is a human being, and the personality seeming to include all those

characteristics which mankind is supposed to entail, i.e., the power of thought, speech and

choice. To personify an object is to endow it with such attributes and it is on account of the

possession of such attributes that we ascribe personhood to non-human beings such as gods,

angels, devils etc. conversely people deprived of such attributes eventhough being human

beings are considered to be less than persons, e.g., idiots etc.

The legal notion of personality need not coincide with the ordinary notion on which it is based.

In law there may be men who are not persons, e.g., slaves. Cattle, they are things and the

object of rights, not persons and subject of them. More so, there may be persons who are not

men, e.g., companies. So also, in Hindu law, idols are legal persons and this has been

recognized by the Privy Council.

So far as legal theory is concerned a person is any being whom the law regards as capable of

rights and duties. Any being that is so capable is a person, whether a human being or not, and

no being that is not so capable is a person, eventhough he may be a man. Persons are the

substances of which the rights and duties are the attributes. It is only in this respect that the

persons possess juridical significance, and this is the exclusive point of view from which

personality receives legal recognition.

Persons so defined may be of two types, natural and legal. A natural person is a human being.

Legal persons are beings, real or imaginary, who for the purpose of legal reasoning are treated

in greater or lesser degree in the same way as human beings.2

2Fitzgerald P.J., Salmond on Jurisprudence, 12

thEdn., New Delhi.


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Legal Status of Animals: The Fact

The only natural persons are human beings. Beasts are not persons, natural or legal. They are

merely things-often the objects of legal rights and duties, but never the subjects of them.

Beasts like men are capable of acts and possess interests yet their acts are neither lawful nor

unlawful. They are not recognized by the law as the appropriate subject matter either of

permission or of prohibition.

Archaic codes punished with death in due course of law the beast the beast that was guilty of

homicide. A conception such as this pertains to a stage that has long since past; but modern law

shows us a relic of it in the rule that a trespassing beast may be distrained damaged feasant,

and kept until its owner or someone else interested in the beast pays compensation. But this, in

modern law, does not involve any legal recognition of the personality of the animal.

A beast is as incapable of legal rights as of duties, for its interests receive no recognition from

the law. The law is made for men and allows no fellowship or bonds of obligation between

them and lower animals. If, to say the least, the beasts possess rights, then they are moral

rights, not recognized by any legal system. Something done to hurt the beast may be wrong to

its owner or revolting to the sentiments of the society, but is no wrong to the beast. No animal

can be the owner of any property. If a testator vests property in the trustees for the

maintenance of his pets, then he will thereby create no valid trust enforceable in any way by or

on behalf these non-human beneficiaries.

There are, however, two cases in which the beasts may be thought to possess legal rights.

Firstly, cruelty to animals is a criminal offence; secondly, a trust for benefit for a certain class of

animals, as opposed to one for individual animals, is valid and enforceable as a public and


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charitable trust. However, we still cannot deduce that we are conferring a legal personality on

animals.3

These duties towards animals are conceived by the law as duties towards the society itself.

They do not correspond to private rights vested in the immediate beneficiaries, but to public

rights vested in the community at large- for the community has a rightful interest, legally

recognized to this extent, in the well being, even of the animals which belong to it. Where,

however, the interests of animals come in conflict with that of humans, the latter generally

prevail.

Animals are things that we own and that have only extrinsic or conditional value as means to

our ends. We may as a matter of personal choice attach a higher value to our companion

animals, such as dogs and cats, but as far as the law is concerned, even these animals are

nothing more than commodities. As a general matter, we do not regard animals as having any

intrinsic value and we protect animal interests only to the extent that it benefits us to do so.

The idea of legal personhood for animals is theoretically attention-grabbing but far removed

from the legal or practical reality of animals. Most animals are not protected by law at all, let

alone recognized as legal persons. All states have anti-cruelty statutes, but those statutes do

not protect the vast majority of animals or confine to any meaningful extent the infliction of

horrendous suffering on animals. Through exemptions for common practices attendant to

research, entertainment, and food production, a vast majority of owners of animals completely

escape the dragnet of state anti-cruelty laws. Common practices and activities involving

unowned animals, such as pest control and hunting, are generally exempted as well. Thus, state

anti-cruelty statutes protect only very few kinds of animals and those animals are protected

only from certain acts of wanton violence too appalling for prosecutors to ignore.4

3Supra note 02 at p. 62.

4http://72.14.235.132/custom?q=cache:rGSQHR6Z54UJ:org.law.rutgers.edu/publications/lawjournal/39_2/02Brya

ntVol39.2.r_1.pdf+legal+status+of+animals+,+pdf&cd=14&hl=en&ct=clnk&client=pub-4977668859770845


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The idea of legal personhood has considerable gravitational pull as a means for protecting

animals because, regardless of the particular theory of legal personhood, the combination of

words, at least, implies respect for animals as individuals who should receive more protection

under the law than they currently receive. However, the starting point for legal reformthe

legal status of animals as the property of humansis so far removed from a position of

respecting animals that the term legal personhood is at this point only posing difficult legal

and cultural questions.

Definitions of Legal Personhood and the

Status of Animals as Property:

In their quest for improved treatment of animals, legal scholars and advocates use two

different definitions of legal personhood. One is quite broad: the extent to which animals have

characteristics that make them so similar to humans that the law should recognize them as

beings with interests that should be legally protected even in cases where protection of those

interests conflicts with humans interests in using animals. Some contend that some animals are

so cognitively similar to humans that it is unjust to exploit them in ways in which we would not

exploit humans of similar cognitive capacity. Others focus on the multiple capacities of animals

and argue that society has a duty to allow full expression of the multiple capacities possessed

by individual nonhuman, as well as human, animals. Another definition of legal personhood for

animals is quite narrow: legal recognition of animals as having standing as legally aggrieved

persons for purposes of bringing lawsuits to enforce laws enacted ostensibly to protect them.

In some respects, this definition contains elements of the broader debate about animals as


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persons. For instance, if animals do not have cognitive capacity comparable to humans and

cannot communicate their preferences, how could they direct attorneys representing them in

court? Further, if they are not persons as we understand that term generally, how can they

be aggrieved persons?

One approach is that there should be legal recognition of the extent to which animals should be

considered persons entitled to inclusion in the moral community such that humans cannot

commit acts on animals that humans cannot commit on equally situated humans. There are

several criticisms to this approach. The criticisms include pragmatic and philosophical reasons

to reject pursuit of a concept of legal personhood that requires endless proofs that animals

bear such substantial similarity to humans. Such attempted proofs fail for two reasons: 1)

humans are heavily invested in defining themselves in opposition to animals; and 2) humans

are equally heavily invested in using/consuming animals. Further, arguments that gain

admission for a select animal species into the privileged and exalted company of humans only

reinforce the hierarchy by which those few additional animal species can, through their human

legal representatives, abuse and oppress other animal species that have not gained entrance to

the moral community at the same time.

Pursuit of the narrow definition of legal personhood will be no more fruitful than a broad

definition in producing meaningful change for animals if it only devolves into endless debate

about whether animals are similar enough to humans to be entitled to standing before a court.

Nor will it be fruitful if the result of legal standing is only further inscription of the property

status of animals. If animals are recognized as plaintiffs but the result of litigation is that the

laws themselves are interpreted as they currently are, then we will not have helped animals by

giving them standing; we will have done no more than make them participants in their

victimization.5

5Supra note 04.


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Commencement of the problem:

Traditionally societys major use for animals was agriculturalfood, fiber, locomotion, and

power. The key to agricultural success was good husbandry, which meant taking great pains to

provide animals with the best possible environment one could find to meet their physical and

psychological natures, and then augmenting their ability to survive and thrive by providing

them with food during famine, protection from predation, water during drought, medical

attention, and so on. Thus traditional agriculture was roughly a fair contract between humans

and animals, with both sides benefiting from the relationship. Welfare was thus assured by the

strongest of sanctions: self-interest. The anti-cruelty ethic needed only to deal with sadists and

psychopaths unmoved by self-interest. The rise of confinement agriculture, the application of

industrial methods to animal production, broke this ancient pact. With technological

sandershormones, vaccines, antibiotics, air handling systems, mechanization, we could

force square pegs into round holes and place animals into environments where they suffered in

ways irrelevant to productivity. At the same historical moment, animals began to be used on a

large scale in research and testing, again causing new and unprecedented degrees of suffering.6

Thats precisely where the problem began.

6http://72.14.235.132/custom?q=cache:l2xbTnwNIp0J:www.michiganlawreview.org/firstimpressions/vol106/rollin

.pdf+legal+status+of+animals+,+pdf&cd=7&hl=en&ct=clnk&client=pub-4977668859770845


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The Hypocrisy:

Although we prohibit the infliction of unnecessary suffering on animals, we do not ask

whether particular animal uses are necessary even though most of the suffering that we impose

on animals cannot be characterized as necessary in any meaningful sense. Rather, we ask only

whether particular treatment is necessary given the uses that are per se not necessary. When

we look at the customs and practices of the various institutions of exploitation and we assume

that those involved in the activity would not inflict more pain and suffering than required for

the particular purpose because it would be irrational to do so. For example, although it is not

necessary for humans to eat meat or dairy products and these foods may well be detrimental to

human health and the environment, we do not ask about the necessity of using animals for

food. We ask only whether the pain and suffering imposed on animals used for food go beyond

what is regarded as acceptable according to the customs and practices of animal agriculture. To

the extent it is customary for farmers to castrate or brand farm animals, both very painful

activities, we regard such actions as necessary because we assume that farmers would not

mutilate animals for no reason.

The result of this framework is that the level of care required by animal welfare laws seldom

rises above that which a rational property owner would provide in order to exploit the animal in

an economically efficient way. Since animals are property, we consider such treatment as

humane, that we would regard as torture if it were inflicted on humans. Animal advocates

seek protection for animals that exceeds what is necessary to exploit them for a particular

purpose, the property status of nonhumans and the political compromise, that is required

invariably results in regulations that do little, if anything at all, to adversely affect the interests

of human property owners or to improve the treatment of nonhumans. The primary effect of


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these measures is to make the public feel better about animal exploitation, which would just be

a sham as it may actually result in a net increase of animal suffering through increased use7.

The reason that the legal status of animals as the property of humans has such a dramatic

effect is that it rests so firmly on an ideology of humans presumed superiority to animals and

humans presumed centrality in the natural world. Indeed, to many, the risk of dislodging

humans from their central place, i.e., challenging humans primacy at the top of a hierarchical

world order is a reason good enough to deny animals legal personhood.

On the flipside, if animals are not property, then corporations cannot own them or use them to

generate profits. Since animals are property, corporations can not only own them, but use

them in whatever way they wish to maximize profits. The uses of animals that maximize profits

are also the uses that result in the infliction of tremendous suffering. Therefore, to diminish the

importance of the property classification, fails to recognize that most animals in the world are

owned by corporations, and that corporate ownership, which is only permitted because we

label animals as property, greatly aggravates animal mistreatment.8

Animals long known to be similar to humans with respect to many characteristics deemed

essential to the definition of humans too are leagues away from any sort of legal personhood.

For instance, chimpanzees and other great apes are cognitively similar to humans. They can

communicate with each other and with us, they have highly developed social communities,

they have a sense of morality, and they have the capacity to suffer from various kinds of

physical and psychological injuries. Yet, for all our knowledge about characteristics

chimpanzees share in common with us characteristics by which we define our own moral

worthwe continue to exploit and abuse them in a variety of ways. We subject them to

invasive, painful experiments, probably because of the cruel irony that they are so similar us.

We keep them in zoos, and we use them for various forms of entertainment and advertising.

7http://72.14.235.132/custom?q=cache:s0t5AlIyK80J:www.law.duke.edu/shell/cite.pl%3F70%2BLaw%2B%26%2BC

ontemp.%2BProbs.%2B9%2B(winter%2B2007)%2Bpdf+legal+status+of+animals+,+pdf&cd=44&hl=en&ct=clnk&clie

nt=pub-49776688597708458

http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2006/02/the_legal_statu.html


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Chimpanzees are the classic example of why it is so apparently counter-productive to pursue

legal personhood for animals based on identifying characteristics that make them sufficiently

similar to humans such that justice requires prohibiting acts on them that cannot be performed

on humans. For every attempted re-definition of these and other animals, it is only humans

who have been re-defined in order to keep the boundary between animals and humans

distinct. The paucity of laws to protect these animals reveals that, while we could recognize in

law that animals have moral standing we actively choose not to do so. Apparently, we like to

think of ourselves as kind to animals, but at the same time we do not want to have to make

sacrifices based on recognition of their moral standing.

When animal advocates start identifying which animals are worthy of moral consideration by

virtue of cognitive capacity, sentience, or multiple capacities, they further make things worse.

The famous assertion, I think, therefore I am, portrays notions of the primacy of humans as

much as it highlights the notions of the inferiority of animals. Even if this approach were to

succeed for those animals deemed most like humans, the end result would only be

reinforcement of a hierarchy of entitlement based on (1) similarity to humans and (2) ability to

appreciate and accept human values. More animals besides humans would simply be in the

position to oppress animals further down on the human-centric hierarchy by which they

entered.

For example, if sea lions are deemed to be sufficiently like humans to be part of the social

community, then why wouldnt they be entitled to eat as much fish as they need to remain

healthy? In the wild they may not be able to capture as many fish as required, but if they are

sufficiently like humans (who are entitled to protect their health), then why wouldnt sea lions

be entitled to protect their health even if it means more intensive fish farming?9

Jubilated efforts have been made by animal advocates and organizations, such as People for the

Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), that led to agreement by McDonalds to set and enforce

higher standards for the slaughterhouses that supply it with meat and to provide increased

9Supra note 04.


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space to hens confined in egg batteries. PETA claims that theres been a real change in

consciousness concerning the treatment of animals used for food and praises McDonalds as

leading the way in reforming the practices of fast-food suppliers, in the treatment and killing

of its beef and poultry. The slaughterhouse standards were developed by Temple Grandin, who

said that Stunning an animal correctly will provide better meat quality. Improper electric

stunning will cause bloodspots in the meat and bone fractures. Good stunning practices are also

required so that a plant will be in compliance with the Humane Slaughter Act and for animal

welfare. When stunning is done correctly, the animal feels no pain and it becomes instantly

unconscious. An animal that is stunned properly will produce a still carcass that is safe for plant

workers to work on. To the extent that McDonalds and others are incurring any costs

whatsoever in making these changes, they are outweighed significantly by the fact that these

corporations can now point to the praise of animal advocates and PETA for their supposedly

humane treatment of nonhuman animals. PETA presented its 2004 Visionary of the Year

Award to Grandin, who is a consultant to McDonalds and other fast-food chains, for her

innovative improvements in slaughtering processes. Some welfarists, such as Paul Waldau,

director of the Center for Animals and Public Policy at Tufts University, proclaim that these

supposed improvements in animal agriculture indicate that a certain segment of the population

is beginning to consume with conscience. This is precisely the sort of comment thatencourages the public to believe that it is now more acceptable to eat animal products because

animals are being treated more humanely, and that shows the generally counterproductive

nature of animal welfare.10

10Supra note 07.


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Conclusion:

We claim to take animal interests seriously from both a moral and legal perspective, which is

why we have anticruelty and other animal-welfare laws in the first place. We purport to

balance human and animal interests, but because animals are property, there can be no

meaningful balance. Animal interests will almost always be regarded as less important than

human interests, even when the human interest at stake is relatively trivial and the animal

interest at stake is significant. The result of any supposed balancing of human and nonhuman

interests required by animal-welfare laws is predetermined from the outset by the property

status of the nonhuman as a food animal, experimental animal, game animal, et cetera.

Various authors have suggested that providing legal personhood to animals will perhaps deter

their killers but how can this ever happen when what we actually think in the terms of killing

less cruelly, or prevent unnecessary killings etc. What would be the scene in the courtroom,

who would the plaintiff be, and what remedy would he/it ask for? Even if we say that humans

or civil society organizations would file the suits on behalf of animals, then what is the purpose

of providing them with legal personhood when as a matter of fact they cannot be treated

equally or at power with humans? We even in our legislations discriminate between animals,

viz, tigers cant be killed because they are an endangered specie while millions of hen, goats are

butchered everyday for our consumption. Do we ever make such discriminations when we talk

of humans, viz, blacks cant be killed because they are less in number while people from India

and China are abounding so they should be killed? Did we ever make such a distinction when

the Jewish race was mercilessly being wiped out by Hitler in concentration camps? Jews were

legal persons, I believe, having the so-called rights!


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Even the Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972, allows killing for educational, scientific, for museums,

collection of specimens etc. It also authorizes the Chief Wild Life Warden to grant permit to

hunt for fees, after stating the reasons for granting such a permit.11

Animals though protected against cruelty inflicted on them by humans, but, as a matter of fact

they never have, in the past, been recognized as legal persons, and perhaps never will, in the

future be recognized as legal persons. The reason behind this is that after billions of years of

evolution, its the human race which has resisted extinction and in addition to that, they has

reached the top of the food chain. Man is the ultimate predator and shall always be. Probably,

at most what animals are destined to get, is some sympathy and compassionate treatment

from human beings. Animals have always been considered as property and have always been

used as a means to an end, as a commodity to be exploited. This may be a sweeping statement

of mine but from what I have gathered from this research I can only say that when our fellow

human beings are being subjected to in-human treatment from us then we can only fathom in

our comfortably couched fantasies that animals will ever get a universally endowed humane

treatment, much less the legal personhood.

So, if at all, we should do anything for animals, we should first quit making tall claims, secondly

we should rather develop some compassion and start this journey of a thousand miles with a

single step by doing the maximum possible for animals at our doorstep and in our vicinity.

11Sec. 12, The Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.


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Bibliography

N.K. Jayakumar, Lectures in Jurisprudence, 2nd Edn., P.J. Fitzgerald, Salmond on Jurisprudence, 12th Edn., The Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. www.law.rutgers.edu www.law.duke.edu http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com

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