Landmark cases in animal law

Eva Bernet Kempers and Ankita Shanker

Chapter 17 in Research Handbook on Animal Law and Animal Rights, 2025, pp 326-354 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Whereas early legal cases involving animals primarily framed them as criminals during the so-called ‘animal trials’ in medieval Europe, jurisprudence involving animals has diversified and expanded over the years. Nowadays, we find a multifaceted array of different kinds of legal cases addressing ‘the question of animals’ from various angles. Apart from purely welfarist cases on the question of what constitutes ‘unnecessary suffering’ to animals or the breadth of the ‘duty of care’ towards animals, a growing number of legal cases exist that address the question of whether animals have legal rights. In this chapter, we give a comprehensive overview of a selection of landmark cases in animal law, approaching animal law as a jurisprudential discipline. Structured in four main sections (covering Europe, the USA, Latin America, and Africa and Asia), a concise summary and analysis is provided of some of the most influential cases that have shaped the discipline of animal law over the years. The chapter concludes that, just as with the animals themselves, the existing body of case law forms a diverse and multifaceted landscape which, albeit over-representing ‘charismatic’ animals, shows a development away from mere anthropocentrism.

Keywords: Landmark animal cases; Animal law; Jurisprudential discipline (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035324873
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