Over the last 30 years, there has been a dramatic increase in our understanding of animal intelligence and behaviour and a broad acceptance that animals are sentient beings that have a right to live free of suffering. This has led to the recognition that the existing legal system has failed to provide animals with access to justice.  To address this failure, two 'streams' of law have been developed that aim to use legal mechanisms to improve the lives of animals.

1. Animal welfare laws may be defined as those laws that seek to promote the interests of animals, within a legal framework that characterises them as property. In essence, animal welfare law sanctions exploitation of animals but seeks to define 'acceptable' limits to that exploitation by prohibiting ‘unnecessary pain and suffering’.

Some examples of activities considered ‘necessary’ under Australia’s current animal welfare laws include:

• Confining millions of pigs, chickens and other farm animals in concrete and steel sheds (modern factory farms) with no access to the outdoors, little to no access to bedding material and little to no meaningful contact with their young;
• Denying anaesthetic during painful procedures such as tail docking, castration and teeth clipping; and
• Using a range of methods from baits and traps to guns and bows and arrows (in some states) to kill millions of wild animals defined as ‘feral’ or ‘game’ every year.

While none of the above acts are necessary from the perspective of the animal, Australia has an abundance of acts, regulations, codes and guidelines, at federal, state and local levels, which are underpinned by the notion of animal welfare. These laws are used to 'manage' the use of animals in educational and research institutions, in zoos and circuses, in food production, in the wild and in our local communities.

2. Animal rights law may be defined as an area of law which seeks to question animals' well-entrenched status as property, with a view to securing fundamental rights for (at least some) animals. The quest for 'animal rights' is not a pursuit for the same rights that humans should have (which are, themselves, still being debated). Essentially, animal rights lawyers argue that animals should not be treated by the law as mere 'things'. This area of the law is based on the assumption that unless animals have rights, they will continue to be treated by society as resources to satisfy human wants and needs.

3. Animals, Welfare and Bills of Rights: At the present time, there are no universally accepted animal welfare laws or ‘Bills of Rights’ that set out the legal interests and entitlements of animals. However a number of attempts have been made to create such documents. These include:

The Universal Declaration of Animal Rights: This document was originally prepared in 1972 and submitted to UNESCO by the International Animal Rights League. It has since been refined and resubmitted by animal protection organisations including the International League of Animal Rights and the French Animal Rights League, who sought to have it incorporated into the Treaty of Rome. To date, it has not been adopted.

The Animal Bill of Rights is an initiative of the US Animal Legal Defense Fund, which aims to influence the regulatory framework for animal protection in the United States by awarding animals certain basic legal rights. While the initiative is national in scope, it could serve as an important precedent for international animal law developments as it contemplates the right of animals to have 'their interests represented in court and safeguarded by the law of the land'.

The Universal Declaration on Animal Welfare is a document prepared by the World Society for the Protection of Animals, which seeks to ensure that animal welfare becomes a consideration of all nations' Governments. The Declaration is notably different from the two described above in that it embodies the philosophy of animal welfare. As such, while it aims to raise awareness about the 60 billion farm animals used globally for food production each year, it seeks to moderate their pain and suffering as opposed to petitioning against it altogether. The Declaration received a formal vote of support from all EU countries in March this year.

ANIMAL LAW IS EMERGING

Whilst the need for legal advocates is an urgent one, animal law, as an area of study and practice is only just beginning. In the United States , animal law has been developing at an increasing rate over the last thirty years. However in Australia , there are still only a handful of advocates (committees, universities and organisations) actively debating these issues.

The reluctance to recognise animal law as a legitimate field is peculiar, as Australians are already engaging in animal law! There are a myriad of statutory councils, committees, liaison groups and panels established to discuss, administer, investigate, oversee and enforce aspects of animal welfare legislation. However the term 'animal law' continues to be a phrase shrouded in mystery, mockery and in some cases fear. We at Voiceless want to overcome that. Our mission is to rebalance the scales, to give animals the legal voice that they deserve.

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