 From constitutional animal law toward interspecies constitutionalizingCharlotte E. Blattner Chapter 2 in Research Handbook on Animal Law and Animal Rights, 2025, pp 15-34 from Edward Elgar Publishing Abstract: Animal law seems to have reached the ‘legal pinnacle’ with the recent rise of constitutional norms dealing with our manifold relations with other animals. Upon closer inspection, however, there is a glaring discrepancy between how constitutions unfold their protective powers in animal law versus other areas of the law. Drawing on constitutional theory and critical animal law, this chapter offers a functional comparative evaluation of constitutional animal laws and shows that they considerably lag as regards the source of constitutional authority, the normativity of authority and its independence, as well as the density and scope of regulation. To transform this ‘thin’ version of constitutional animal law into a more fully-fledged account, reasonable policy and law recommendations are formulated. This analysis is complemented with inputs from political theory about animals and recent advances on animal agency to argue for the inclusion and participation of animals in constitutional processes, resulting in a ‘thick’ form of ‘interspecies constitutionalizing. Keywords: Constitutional theory; Constitutionalisation; Interspecies justice; Animal agency; Fundamental animal rights; Constitutional animal law (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:22949_2 Ordering information: This item can be ordered from Access Statistics for this chapter More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing |
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