Animals are fast becoming non-human persons
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A long, long time ago, animals were considered chattel – like chairs, tables, wheel barrows or any item of movable property. Even today such thinking exists and we can add movables like computers and cell phones to that list. Humans are persons and chattel is property. With the evolving global animal rights movement these perceptions have begun to change.Will Tuttle, Ph.D., author of The World Peace Diet: Eating for Spiritual Health and Social Harmony, says that the official story is that non-human animals were put on this Earth for us humans to use and that the violence this entails was perfectly acceptable. He continues that according to anthropologists, around 10,000 years ago, in what is today Iraq, people for the first time began the practice of herding, owning and confining animals for food where beings were reduced to mere property commodities, rather than being mysterious, autonomous, and respected cohabitants of the Earth and compares it to around 3,000 years ago, where women were bought and sold as chattel property.
Yet, animals are sentient beings. To quote Dr. Virginia Williams, Chair of New Zealand’s National Animal Ethics Advisory Committee, “To say that animals are sentient is to state explicitly that they can experience both positive and negative emotions, including pain and distress.” A United States court in 1997 encapsulated the status of animals thus: “The view equating a living, breathing animal to a chattel is archaic and does not withstand the test of critical analysis. Slavish adherence to a worn-out doctrine without serious, critical analysis does the law no good and, indeed, engenders public disrespect for the law.”
The intelligence factor in animals is well illustrated in numerous scientific studies on different animal species, from crows, to snakes to baboons and many more. To quote DNEWS : “From an elephant that speaks Korean to goldfish that distinguish Bach from Stravinsky, the animal kingdom is full of non-human brainiacs.”
Animals suffer multitude forms of cruelty– in slaughterhouses, in livestock farms, in laboratories, in zoos, in pet shops, in the fashion industry, on the streets, in homes and even in places of religious worship; they are abused and exploited for entertainment, breeding and wagering; the list is endless.
No matter what form or shape it takes, a life is a life – with a value. And, animals have an intrinsic value.
England was the first country to enact a law in 1911, to protect animals. It is reported that the British government had publicly stated that animals are sentient beings, not merely commodities.
Many countries, including Germany, Switzerland, Slovenia and Brazil afford Constitutional protection to animals. In others, that protection is afforded to certain animals, such as rare or wild animals. In the Netherlands, Italy and South Africa there are on-going campaigns for constitutional protection for animals. In India, where there is a constitutional prohibition on the slaughter of cows, calves and other milk and draught animals, activists are agitating for constitutional protection for all animals. In our country too, at this time, where proposals for constitutional reform have been called for, several animal welfare organisations and animal rights activists have recommended constitutional protection for animals.
Animal welfare is today, an international policy issue. The United Nations has declared a World Wildlife Day; the World Organization for Animals (OIE) has set international standards for animal protection; In the European Union, the Amsterdam Treaty includes a Protocol on Animal Welfare and the Lisbon Treaty gives animal welfare a prominence similar to that extended to other pivotal principles such as gender equality; a campaign for a Universal Declaration on Animal Welfare for adoption by the United Nations is underway; Many countries celebrate World Animal Day.
France, Australia, New Zealand, Colombia and Quebec have amended their laws to recognize animals as sentient beings – they can therefore no longer be legally or morally regarded as property, but as persons.
There are also judicial determinations that animals are not mere property, but have a distinct personhood.
India recently declared that dolphins and whales are ‘non human persons;in Canada, where it was alleged that the City of Edmonton was violating animal welfare laws by providing inadequate housing for a lone, unhealthy elephant, although the court held that the application was an abuse of process, on appeal, Alberta Chief Justice Catherine Fraser in dissent stated that “Courts across the country are starting to recognize, even though animals are technically property, that they’re also something a little bit more than property. They’re somewhere between furniture and a person” ; In the Balearic Islands great apes are persons; An Argentinian judge granted personhood to an orangutan; Spain was the first nation to give rights similar to human rights to animals, by granting personhood to great apes, thus affording them the right to life, liberty and freedom from torture; a New York court has determined that “a pet is not just a thing, but occupies a special place somewhere between a person and a piece of furniture”;
As distinguished Professor of Law Gary L. Francione, says, “If animal rights is about anything, it’s about changing the status of non-human animals in the eyes of society, and changing their status in law. Can anyone in 2016 still feasibly maintain there is no difference between the things we possess (cars, houses, furniture) and living breathing beings?”
In Sri Lanka, the Animal Welfare Bill approved by Cabinet and awaiting presentation in Parliament, defines “animal” as “any living being other than a human being and includes a domestic animal, a farm animal, an animal in captivity, a wild animal, a companion animal, a stray animal and a food animal” – A significant step which will receive national and international acclaim.
It will do well for our policy makers, the bureaucrats who advise them, those who administer justice and those who enforce the laws to keep abreast with global developments on the status of animals so that when taking decisions they will give due respect to these developments, whether the decision pertains to street dog population control, gifting baby elephants to foreign States, slaughtering food animals or the treatment of elephants participating in peraheras - all of which are current issues, to name a few. As for us humans, who share this Earth with other living beings, we must re-shape our attitudes towards animals so that man and animal can co-exist in harmony.