"Enforcement of European Animal Welfare Related Legislation" Brussels 12-13 June 2012

1. Animals as goods (things) or sentient beings. A legal historical indicator for Animal Welfare "Enforcement of European Animal Welfare Related Legislation"Brussels 12-13 June 2012

2. Teresa Giménez-CandelaUniversitat Autònoma de Barcelonawww.derechoanimal.info

3. Things vs. sentient beings A major change took place during the 90’s which challenged the continued existence of a category that has existed in Law since Roman times: animals are objects that are owned.

4. ANIMALS IN CIVIL AND COMMON LAW SYSTEMS

5. ANIMALS AS NO-THINGS

6. ANIMALS AS NO-THINGS This change (animals are “non-objects”) can be criticised for lack of ambition, in that it does not give a new legal status nor does it improve animals’ legal condition. While maintaining animals’ continued existence as Property, by denying that they are “objects” and opens the door to animals’ legal’ condition being governed by its own laws.

7. Kinds of property • Personal property • Personal property • Real estate property • Intellectual property • Property on living beings (?)

8. The expression “sentient beings” as a standard for regulating animal wellbeing is now being implemented in many of the EU’s legal texts

9. Art. 13 Treaty of Lisabon Only one programmatic legal text has included this highly expressive legal expression which recognises animals’ condition as beings who share with us a capacity to feel and suffer

10. TWO DIFFERENT PLANES WITH DIFFERENT CONSEQUENCES

11. TWO DIFFERENT PLANES WITH DIFFERENT CONSEQUENCES 1. - Thehealth and welfare of animalsistheaimsoughtbyAnimal WelfareLegislation, primarilyintendedtoregulatetheactivity of industries, producers and veterinarians2. - Avoidconflicts and punishcrueltythatcould be described as a crime, isthepurpose of Animal Law, whichappliesinternally in MemberStates. A reductiontoabsurdity of thisdichotomyisthatcompanionAnimals (private) are protectedfromcruelty, abandonment, torture and death, butinstead, itseemsthat in thiscategory are productionanimals , ortestinganimals, at leastthey are notreferenced in the criminal codes

12. Building bridges for cooperation • Legal texts, particularly those that provide the basic structure for the entire regulatory system and the enforcement of standards, need to be worded with categories that put animals in a context that more accurately reflects their status as sentient beings, taking them out of the category of objects governed by narrow Property relationships

13. Building bridges for cooperation • Veterinary surgeons and jurists should work closer together with the goal of improving animals’ living conditions’. • This in turn will enable us to address from firmer ground the changes that must be made—now more than ever—in the legal systems governing animals.

15. SPECIFIC PROPOSALS of HARMONIZATION 1. - Making of European legislation on animal welfare issue an instrument intelligible. Much of the legislation is repetitive, dark and excessive. 2. - Extending the classification of 'sentient beings' to all animals. The Declaration of Article 13 of the Treaty of Lisbon, with all its defects, should be extended to Member States as a standard of their internal law.

16. SPECIFIC PROPOSALS of HARMONIZATION 3. Consistentlyharmonization of legal textstotheclassification of 'sentientbeings'. In otherwords, toreplacetheclassification of animals as "things" or as "non-things" in the legal texts of thelawcountries, whodeveloptextsorprogrammaticbasis.

17. SPECIFIC PROPOSALS of HARMONIZATION 4. – Applicationof thisqualificationtocompanionanimals and animalsused in shows. 5. - StandardsbywhichAnimal WelfareLaware measured, be applicabletoanylegislationonanimalswithinthe EU

19. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION!!teresa.gimenez.candela@uab.cat