The concept of animal dignity in Swiss animal welfare law

Gieri Bolliger

Chapter 10 in Research Handbook on Animal Law and Animal Rights, 2025, pp 188-204 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: The protection of animal dignity under Swiss law is based on the inherent worth of animals and grants them not only protection from pain, suffering, harm, or anxiety but also from non-sentientist injuries, such as humiliation, excessive instrumentalization, and substantial interference with their appearance or abilities. The concept is a milestone and an advance into a new dimension of animal law based on biocentrism. Against the background of animal dignity protection, Switzerland passed several reforms and amendments. However, animal dignity is given only a relative value in Swiss law, meaning that violations of animal dignity can usually be balanced out and legally justified by prevailing human interests. As a result, also in Switzerland, there are several highly questionable uses of animals that are still considered legitimate and are neither subject to legal scrutiny nor essentially questioned by society. Consequently, the far-reaching conceptual reorganization of Swiss animal law has not yet led to a fundamental change in the human–animal relationship in practice.

Keywords: Animal dignity; Dignity protection; Humiliation; Instrumentalization; Animal Welfare Act; AWA; Swiss law (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035324873
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