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Rights of Nature Include Rights of Domesticated Animals

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Der Schutz des Individuums durch das Recht

Abstract

The current trend to grant nature and natural entities rights is deficient to the extent it leaves domestic animals out of the legal picture. The 2022 Ecuadorian Constitutional Court judgment on the wild monkey Estrellita manifests the undue legal privileging of wild animals over domesticated animals. Estrellita extended rights of nature to wild animals, although the recognition of rights of nature amounts to false indigenisation and organised hypocrisy. The rationales offered for rights of nature, ranging from materialism over animism, are less convincing than the explanation for rights that are due to animals because of their ability to suffer. Three further practical functions of legal rights (resistance against commodification, shifting the burden of explanation and justification, and off-setting political powerlessness) are highly relevant for animals. Especially domesticated animals need legal rights more than mountains.

Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Anne Peters, LL.M. (Harvard), Director at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg, Titular Professor at the University of Basel, Honorary Professor at the University of Heidelberg and the Freie Universität Berlin and L. Bates Lea Global Law Professor at the Law School of the University of Michigan, Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration and Associate Member of the Institut de Droit International.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Stone (1972), pp. 450–501.

  2. 2.

    Kauffmann (2020).

  3. 3.

    46 provisions on the law of nature were adopted or ongoing in 2019, Kauffmann (2020).

  4. 4.

    See on the case law Peters (2021), pp. 444–454; Peters (2022).

  5. 5.

    Constitutional Court of Ecuador, Mona Estrellita, Sentencia No. 253-20-JH/22, 27.01.2022.

  6. 6.

    Constitución de la República del Ecuador, published in the Official Register October 20, 2008, https://constitutionnet.org/sites/default/files/ecuador_constitution_english_1.pdf, accessed 30.11.2022.

  7. 7.

    Constitutional Court of Ecuador, Mona Estrellita, Sentencia No. 253-20-JH/22, 27.01.2022, para. 66.

  8. 8.

    Constitutional Court of Ecuador, Mona Estrellita, Sentencia No. 253-20-JH/22, 27.01.2022, para. 66 (emphasis added).

  9. 9.

    Constitutional Court of Ecuador, Mona Estrellita, Sentencia No. 253-20-JH/22, 27.01.2022, para. 121.

  10. 10.

    Constitutional Court of Ecuador, Mona Estrellita, Sentencia No. 253-20-JH/22, 27.01.2022, para. 145.

  11. 11.

    Constitutional Court of Ecuador, Mona Estrellita, Sentencia No. 253-20-JH/22, 27.01.2022, para. 145.

  12. 12.

    Constitutional Court of Ecuador, Mona Estrellita, Sentencia No. 253-20-JH/22, 27.01.2022, heading of section 5.1.3; see also heading of section 5.1.6. (emphasis added).

  13. 13.

    Constitutional Court of Ecuador, Mona Estrellita, Sentencia No. 253-20-JH/22, 27.01.2022, para. 66 (emphasis added).

  14. 14.

    Constitutional Court of Ecuador, Mona Estrellita, Sentencia No. 253-20-JH/22, 27.01.2022, para. 72.

  15. 15.

    Constitutional Court of Ecuador, Mona Estrellita, Sentencia No. 253-20-JH/22, 27.01.2022, section 5.1.2.

  16. 16.

    Constitutional Court of Ecuador, Mona Estrellita, Sentencia No. 253-20-JH/22, 27.01.2022, para. 64.

  17. 17.

    Constitutional Court of Ecuador, Mona Estrellita, Sentencia No. 253-20-JH/22, 27.01.2022, para. 97.

  18. 18.

    Constitutional Court of Ecuador, Mona Estrellita, Sentencia No. 253-20-JH/22, 27.01.2022, para. 103.

  19. 19.

    See out of the rich debate on rights of nature, apart from the literature cited in the following: Adloff and Busse (2021); Darpö (2021); Kauffman and Martin (2021); Corrigan and Oksanen (2021); Tănăsescu (2022). Against rights of nature e.g. Bétaille (2020).

  20. 20.

    O’Donnell et al. (2020).

  21. 21.

    Vargas Roncancio (2021), p. 119, quoting Escobar (2018).

  22. 22.

    Jones (2021), p. 79 with references.

  23. 23.

    Petersmann (2021), pp. 118–119 incl. fn. 110.

  24. 24.

    Petersmann (2021), p. 119, fn. 108, referencing Kapur (2020).

  25. 25.

    Boyd (2017), pp. 170–171, recounts how US American environmental NGOs worked together with Ecuadorian activists to lobby for and design the relevant provisions in the Ecuadorian constitution.

  26. 26.

    Leopold (1949), pp. 224–225.

  27. 27.

    Regan (2004), p. 362.

  28. 28.

    See on Estrellita above Sect. 3. Also, all successful animal rights cases so far concerned wild (captured) animals.

  29. 29.

    Descola (2005).

  30. 30.

    Bar-Ona et al. (2018). Humans and poultry are not counted here.

  31. 31.

    Cf. e.g. ICRC, Guidelines on the Protection of the Environment in Armed Conflict: Rules and Recommendations Relating to the Protection of the Natural Environment under International Humanitarian Law, with Commentary, ICRC, Geneva, 2020, Preliminary Considerations, para. 16 (p. 18), www.icrc.org/en/document/guidelines-protection-natural-environment-armed-conflict-rules-and-recommendations-relating, accessed 30.11.2022.

  32. 32.

    Stilt (2021), p. 285.

  33. 33.

    Davies (2017), p. 68 and 72.

  34. 34.

    Constitutional Court of Guatemala, 08.11.2019, No. 452-2019, p. 50.

  35. 35.

    Tauli Corpuz (2007), p. 28. In 2007, the author was Presidenta del Foro Permanente para Cuestiones Indígenas de las Naciones Unidas and later became Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples (2014–2020).

  36. 36.

    Cf. preambles of the 1945 United Nations (UN) Charter, the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), and the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR).

  37. 37.

    Animals could also be awarded “rights” as things in the mentioned neo-material framework, which is however, as I pointed out, not convincing.

  38. 38.

    See Bentham (1789), pp. 310–311, fn. 1; Singer (1975), p. 9; Nussbaum (2006), pp. 361–362.

  39. 39.

    Nagel (1974).

  40. 40.

    Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness of 7 July 2012, http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf, accessed 30.11.2022.

  41. 41.

    Birch (2017), p. 3.

  42. 42.

    Although sentience in the narrow sense is a capacity broadly speaking (the capacity to experience a condition as good or bad), it is a purely passive one. Focusing on sentience does not bear the danger of ableism.

  43. 43.

    Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness of 7 July 2012.

  44. 44.

    Proctor et al. (2013).

  45. 45.

    A number of new legal provisions explicitly qualify animals as sentient beings (Art. 13 TFEU; Art. 515–514 of the French Code Civil (2015); Art. 655(3) of the Colombian Codigo Civil; Art. 333 bis of the Spanish Civil Code (2021), and others.

  46. 46.

    Blattner (2019).

  47. 47.

    Supreme Court of Justice of Colombia, Judgment AHC4806-2017 26.07.2017, Expediente T1700122130002017-00468-02) [Chucho case], passim, esp. heading 2.4.3 and 2.4.5.

  48. 48.

    Presentación Efectuada por A.F.A.D.A Respecto del Chimpancé “Cecilia” – Sujecto no Humano (Mendoza Third Court of Guarantees, Argentina) 03.11.2016, P-72.254/15.

  49. 49.

    In contrast, other judicial pronouncements, including the Estrellita judgment, did not reserve rights for conscious animals: High Court of Punjab and Haryana at Chandigarh, CRR 533-2013, judgment of 31.05.2019, para. 95 (mandatory direction, herein no. 29). Cf. also Supreme Court of Justice of Colombia, Judgment AHC4806-2017 26.07.2017, Expediente T1700122130002017-00468-02) [Chucho case], para. 2.4.5 (p. 8 of the translation): Not “out of a petty and trivial sentimental criterion that stems from the consideration of animal suffering”.

  50. 50.

    Albertson Fineman (2008).

  51. 51.

    Marder (2013); Gagliano (2018).

  52. 52.

    Cf. the famous extension of “dignity” to “creatures” (including plants) by the Swiss Constitution (Art. 120(2)).

  53. 53.

    Genesis 1:28.

  54. 54.

    Constitutional Court of Columbia (CCC), Atrato, T-622 of 10.11.2016, para. 9.29.

  55. 55.

    Garver (2021), p. 99.

  56. 56.

    Constitutional Court of Ecuador, Mona Estrellita, Sentencia No. 253-20-JH/22, 27.01.2022, para. 56.

  57. 57.

    Constitutional Court of Columbia (CCC), Atrato, T-622 of 10.11.2016, para. 9.30.

  58. 58.

    Kurzweil (1999).

  59. 59.

    Herbrechter (2009), pp. 64–65.

  60. 60.

    Youatt (2020), p. 142.

  61. 61.

    Common Art. 1(2) ICCPR and ICECSR.

  62. 62.

    “In the realm of ends everything has either a price or an intrinsic value. Anything with a price can be replaced by something else as its equivalent, whereas anything that is above all price and therefore admits of no equivalent has intrinsic value.” Kant (1999), p. 33.

  63. 63.

    Stucki (2020).

  64. 64.

    See above Sect. 5.2.

  65. 65.

    Colombian Constitutional Court (CCC), sentence C-041 of 01.02.2017, demanda de inconstitucionalidad contra el artículo 5 (parcial) de la Ley 1774 de 2016, “por medio de la cual se modifican el Código Civil, la Ley 84 de 1989, el Código Penal, el Código de Procedimiento Penal y se dictan otras disposiciones”, para. 4.3.

  66. 66.

    See Stone (1972), p. 453.

  67. 67.

    Stilt (2021), p. 285, fn. 74.

  68. 68.

    McAdams (2000); Geisinger (2002).

  69. 69.

    Harvey (2004).

  70. 70.

    van Klink (2016), pp. 30–31.

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  1. Heidelberg, Deutschland

    Anne Peters

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  1. Anne Peters
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  1. Europäische Akademie der Arbeit in der Universität Frankfurt am Main, University of Labour, Frankfurt am Main, Deutschland

    Philipp B. Donath

  2. Goethe Universität Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt am Main, Deutschland

    Alexander Heger

  3. Goethe Universität Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt am Main, Deutschland

    Moritz Malkmus

  4. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer PartG mbB, Frankfurt am Main, Deutschland

    Orhan Bayrak

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Peters, A. (2023). Rights of Nature Include Rights of Domesticated Animals. In: Donath, P.B., Heger, A., Malkmus, M., Bayrak, O. (eds) Der Schutz des Individuums durch das Recht. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-66978-5_2

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