Åbo Akademi: Open Journal Systems
Not a member yet
892 research outputs found
Sort by
Speciesism in Climate Change-Related Disasters: Billions of Animals are Excluded from the Continuum of Disaster Management
Full text linkThe warming climate and increasing rate and strength of disasters resulting from shifting weather patterns affect both humans and animals. As disaster management agencies globally are forced to become more effective at preparing and responding to climate-related disasters, the most populous farmed species are being left out of these plans. As the number of animals at risk of disaster events increases, it is mostly companion animal species that have been given more consideration for evacuation and sheltering. Species such as chickens, the most populous avian species on the planet, along with the rest of the eighty billion other farmed land animals that are killed every year for human consumption, have little to no protection in both intensive and extensive farming systems, whether in high or low-income countries. The speciesism prevalent in society is mirrored in disaster management to the detriment of public health, the environment, and animal rights
Uncovering the Legal Vulnerability of Hunting Dogs in France and Spain
Full text linkHunting has deep historical roots as a means of subsistence and recreation, evolving over time to encompass various social, cultural, and economic dimensions. A crucial aspect of hunting is the use of dogs, which have been bred and trained for millennia to aid hunters in tracking and capturing prey. This paper delves into the legal safeguards extended to hunting dogs in France and Spain, focusing on their unique role in the hunting tradition. Both France and Spain recognize the sentience of domestic animals, including hunting dogs, which grants them some level of legal protection. Nevertheless, the absence of dedicated provisions for hunting dogs leaves them vulnerable. The legal landscape concerning domestic animals is extensive and fragmented in both countries, with laws spreading across multiple texts. Spain’s recent move towards a national animal protection law presented an opportunity for reform. However, a controversial amendment that excludes hunting dogs raises questions about equality before the law, potentially granting preferential treatment to hunters. This argument claims enhanced legal protections for hunting dogs in France and Spain. The contention underscores the role that the European Union (EU) can play in ensuring compliance from Member States with European values and, in particular, with Article 13 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). As the EU has been at the forefront of animal welfare improvements, it holds the potential to influence change in Member States, ultimately fostering greater compassion and fairness in the treatment of hunting dogs
The Challenges of Global Animal Law
Full text linkAnimals play a formidable role in human affairs across a wide range of areas including, but not limited to, religion, food, governance, commercial activity and culture. Law being a tool to create order, it becomes necessary that the law regulates the many facets of humananimal interaction. The prominence of this role explains various attempts at regulating these activities both at the domestic and the international level.
Zooming in on the international plane, there have been many attempts at regulating animal activity both for economic purposes, disease control and in a limited sense, welfare. As global animal law continues to advance at a faster rate, it is pertinent to smoothen out edges and analyze the possibilities in international law for progressive development. The situation is further worsened by the discrepancies that already exist between the global south and the global north. These discrepancies are not exclusive to animal protection but also arise in other sociolegal headways.
This paper seeks to analyze the challenges of global animal law. The analysis shows that existing structures, like that of the African Union through its agencies, offer pathways of surmounting these challenges by bringing many states under the same normative force concurrently and seamlessly. To make progress on the advancement of animal law internationally, a harmonious approach is needed, and that approach cannot be achieved until the international community retreats and considers diverse perspectives and cultural patterns that might stand in the way of a clear understanding of what is at stake, and what is to be achieved
The Inescapable Harms of Animal Agriculture: How Might Sanctuaries Respond to Threats from Climate Disasters and Diseases
Full text linkFarmed animal sanctuaries are upheld as refuges, spaces demarcated materially anddiscursively, where formerly farmed animals have the right to grow old, participate in multispeciescommunities and collaborate in larger political projects that imagine the freedom for all and resistanceagainst animal exploitation. Sanctuaries disengage and agitate against food production narratives ofhow these animals ought to live both spatially and relationally. However, the reach of the animalagriculture industry is creeping into sanctuary spaces through ever-increasing risks such as diseases(e.g., avian influenza), the climate crisis (e.g., fires and floods), and other disaster events, revealinginescapable harms that must be addressed.
This article considers the shared, albeit unevenly experienced vulnerability to disasters for farmedanimals, as well as what the inescapable harms imposed by animal agriculture mean for sanctuaries.We first identify human sovereignty as the source of intensifying crises and disasters that sanctuariesare forced to confront, as well as the overarching context that sanctuaries are operating within.Following that, we engage with biological and climate disasters as two main case studies, examininghow sanctuaries have responded to them, and what alternative actions sanctuaries could take. Finally,we consider how sanctuaries might take up the labor and responsibility of participating in broaderstruggles for institutional change beyond the sanctuary-gate, educating people about the relationshipsbetween the climate crisis, disease risk, and all scales of farmed animal production and the subsequentchallenges they pose to sanctuaries. Through a multispecies justice framework, we suggest that disasterevents represent key opportunities for sanctuaries to engage with the political project of ending animalproduction at all scales to ensure a safer future for humans and more-than-humans alike
Climate Change and Wild Animals: Key Ethical Perspectives
Full text linkClimate change is already having significant impacts on wild animal species and individuals.While not all these impacts are negative, many individual animals will suffer declines in their welfareand some will die, and many species will move towards extinction, as the climate changes. From anumber of ethical perspectives, these negative impacts of climate change matter. This paper will outlinethree such perspectives: those that emphasize the value of species, those that are primarily concernedwith individual animals’ welfare, and those that focus on climate injustice. Each of these perspectivesappears to require an ethically-informed policy response to negative climate impacts on wild animals.However, I’ll suggest, such different ethical perspectives don’t always agree on what the best practicalresponse actually is. This may make it more difficult to construct ethical policy and legal frameworks torespond to climate change in the context of wild animals
Domestic Rabbit Abandonment in Canada
Full text linkThis paper describes the extent of the problem of domestic rabbit abandonment in Canada, examines the source and resolution of the problem from a socio-legal perspective, and makes recommendations as to how this problem might be effectively addressed. It argues that the problem is perpetuated by the combination of inadequate legislation and public misconceptions about the needs of domestic rabbits as pets. Through an examination of the wide range of Canadian laws relevant to the problem, this paper demonstrates that these laws do not adequately address the issue of rabbit abandonment because they treat animals as property rather than as sentient beings and are often inconsistent, unclear and difficult to enforce. Further, by examining popular societal perceptions and misconceptions about domestic rabbits, this paper explains how pet rabbit abandonment is perpetuated by societal norms which fail to identify it as an animal cruelty issue. Combined with the inadequacies of legislative protections for domestic rabbits, Canadian popular culture views domestic rabbits alternately as rodents or as temporary pets who are able to fend for themselves when released into the wild. The paper concludes with recommendations for decreasing the rate of domestic rabbit abandonment, or eliminating it altogether. These suggestions reflect the idea that clear, consistent and enforceable legal prohibitions, coupled with efforts to educate the public about domestic rabbits, are the most effective way of deterring people from abandoning their rabbits
A Proposal: Protecting Military Working Dogs from Lasting Effects of War-Induced Trauma and Internalized Stress
Full text linkThis article proposes that certain deleterious physical conditions Military Working Dogsdevelop while serving militaries are a result of the relationship between the stressful nature of theirwork, and their bodies’ response to that stress, through their experienced trauma, internalized stress(high cortisol levels), and anxiety. Subsequently, this article proposes methods to ameliorate thosedeleterious physical conditions by improving Military Working Dogs’ welfare during their militaryservice
Comparative Animal Law!
Full text linkThis contribution argues in favour of the synergy between two fields: animal law and comparative law. Comparative law will allow for the development and improvement of animal law. Animal law, for its part, can move comparative law beyond the narrow confines of its traditional research agenda. The paper highlights a select number of key issues that are particularly relevant for undertaking serious comparative legal research with respect to animals